looking-up-docs

Documentation Lookup with Context7

Context7 provides up-to-date, version-specific documentation and code examples directly from source libraries.

Why Context7

• Current APIs: No hallucinated or outdated patterns
• Version-specific: Gets docs for exact library versions
• Code examples: Real, working code from actual documentation

Workflow

1. Resolve library ID: mcp__context7__resolve-library-id with libraryName
2. Get documentation: mcp__context7__get-library-docs with context7CompatibleLibraryID and topic

Modes

Mode	Use For
code	API references, code examples (default)
info	Conceptual guides, architecture, tutorials

Examples

# React hooks
resolve-library-id: "react"
get-library-docs: context7CompatibleLibraryID="/facebook/react", topic="hooks", mode="code"

# Next.js middleware
resolve-library-id: "next.js"
get-library-docs: context7CompatibleLibraryID="/vercel/next.js", topic="middleware"

# Go net/http
resolve-library-id: "go net/http"
get-library-docs: context7CompatibleLibraryID="/golang/go", topic="http server"

# Kubernetes API
resolve-library-id: "kubernetes"
get-library-docs: context7CompatibleLibraryID="/kubernetes/kubernetes", topic="deployment"

Tips

• Use topic parameter to narrow results to specific features
• Try mode="info" for architectural questions
• Paginate with page=2, page=3 if initial results insufficient

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Gotchas

• Context7 query without version scoping returns hits across versions — Next.js 14 question can answer with Next.js 12 code. Always include the version.
• Library aliases (e.g., react vs @types/react) may resolve to different libraries — use the full Context7 ID, not the npm name.
• Stale cache: Context7 may have indexed a library version that's been yanked from npm — check upstream before trusting.
• Rate limits per API key per day — bursting on the free tier locks the key out until midnight UTC.
• No multi-version diff: Context7 doesn't surface what changed between versions; for migrations, dual-query and compare manually.