v1.7.0 — Token-efficiency levers and Go multi-module support

Version: 1.7.0

v1.7.0 is the token-efficiency pass. Every MCP tool that could return runaway output now accepts density-control parameters (summary, top_n, format, limit, offset, directory, check), so AI agents can ask for as much or as little detail as the next step actually requires. Full output remains the default — these parameters are opt-in.

The release also lands full Go multi-module support, a rewrite of the progressive-disclosure docs and MCP server instructions so agents learn the efficient call pattern automatically on connect, and a set of indexing fixes that close real gaps in Python and Go corpus discovery.

The v1.0.0 API freeze remains in effect: tool signatures, CLI flags, and plugin schema are unchanged.

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Added — token-efficiency controls

Canopy’s MCP tools can return very large payloads on large codebases. In v1.7.0, every tool that could return runaway output accepts one or more density-control parameters. Full output remains the default — these parameters are opt-in.

Representative reductions, measured across three reference repositories:

Tool	Control	Best measured reduction
canopy_find_cycles	summary=true, top_n=N	Up to ~420× on cycle-heavy repos
canopy_health_check	summary=true	~25–30× on large finding sets
canopy_survey (new)	n/a (bundled)	~11× vs. the equivalent multi-call orientation
canopy_prepare	format=concise	~8× on pre-edit inspection
canopy_validate	format=concise	~6–7×
canopy_search	summary=true	~2–4× on broad queries
canopy_git_blame	summary=true	~7–17× on long-lived files
canopy_understand	format=concise	~4–13× on hub files
canopy_architecture_map	format=json	~1.5–1.6×

End-to-end, a full refactor workflow that previously cost ~4,500 tokens of tool output now costs ~425 tokens when the agent uses these controls through the progressive-disclosure ladder — about a 10× reduction.

Added — progressive-disclosure docs and MCP instructions

• New Progressive Disclosure guide covering the four disclosure tiers (assess → triage → orient → detail), a parameter reference by tool family, five workflow recipes, and a per-tool quick reference.
• The MCP Tools Reference now documents every density-control parameter alongside the tool signatures.
• MCP server instructions rewritten. Agents that connect via MCP receive a compact instruction block on handshake that teaches the progressive-disclosure ladder with concrete examples. No prompting from the operator is required — agents learn the efficient call path automatically.

Added — Go multi-module support

Previously, Canopy’s Go resolver only handled relative imports. Module imports such as go.etcd.io/etcd/api/v3/... were treated as external and dropped from the graph, which meant graph tools (trace_dependents, trace_imports, find_cycles, check_wiring, dependency_graph) returned empty results on Go monorepos.

v1.7.0 adds full multi-module go.mod discovery with longest-prefix matching, so every intra-repo Go import resolves. On a representative Go monorepo this took the resolved-import edge count from zero to the thousands and made the graph tools fully functional.

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Fixed

• Python and Go indexing — the default discovery list has been expanded so canopy index . picks up .py and .go files out-of-the-box, matching the five languages Canopy officially supports (TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Rust, Go). Previously these extensions required a per-repo config override.
• Embedding runtime pre-flight — canopy index --with-embeddings now emits a clear error with remediation steps if the embedding runtime isn’t available, instead of crashing.
• JavaScript parsing — a tree-sitter grammar version mismatch caused every .js / .mjs / .cjs file to fail to parse silently. Fixed; JavaScript repositories now index correctly.
• Colorblind-safe status indicators — status banners and badges now carry semantic icons in addition to color, so red-green and blue-yellow colorblind users receive the signal through shape as well as hue.

Deferred to v1.8.x

These items were originally scoped alongside v1.7.0 and ship in subsequent minor releases:

1. macOS Gatekeeper notarization so the quarantine dialog does not appear on first run.
2. Native installers per platform — Homebrew tap on macOS, .deb / .rpm on Linux, .msi or winget on Windows.
3. Alpine / musl Linux builds for fully-static portable binaries.