v8-utils

CLI and MCP tools for V8 JavaScript engine developers.

Requirements

• Python 3.12+
• uv
• luci-auth on $PATH (for Pinpoint job creation)
• gcloud auth application-default login (optional, for CAS data access)

Installation

# Everything -- all CLIs and all MCP tool groups:
uv tool install v8-utils
# Or install directly from GitHub:
uv tool install git+https://github.com/schuay/v8-utils.git
# Upgrade:
uv tool upgrade v8-utils

All CLIs (pp, vt, jsb, pd, lv, v8-mcp) support --version. See RELEASING.md for release preparation and publishing.

There are no extras to remember: a forgotten one breaks a console script outright (the CLIs import their dependencies at module scope) and silently drops MCP tool groups, so the v8-utils distribution installs the full stack.

Subsetting the install

Deployments that want only part of the surface install the companion v8-utils-core distribution from packaging/core/ instead. Same code, same entry points, but the scientific/cloud stack sits behind extras that the MCP server loads lazily; groups whose extra is missing are skipped at startup with a warning naming the extra:

# MCP server core plus the git-backed tool groups only:
uv pip install "git+https://github.com/schuay/v8-utils.git#subdirectory=packaging/core"
# ... plus a subset:
uv pip install "v8-utils-core[analysis] @ git+https://github.com/schuay/v8-utils.git#subdirectory=packaging/core"

Extra	Enables
(none)	repo_git_*, worktree and gerrit_* MCP groups
analysis	the pd and performance MCP groups, the pd / jsb CLIs (numpy/pandas/scipy/ruptures)
pinpoint	the pinpoint MCP group and the pp CLI
gchat	the Google Chat frontend (pp daemon)
spanner	the Spanner-backed perf timeseries adaptor
all	everything -- equivalent to the v8-utils distribution

Both distributions install the same v8_utils module, so they are alternatives rather than layers: an environment gets one or the other.

Update prompts

Interactive pp and vt commands check GitHub's main/VERSION at most once per day. A larger integer than the installed stamp prompts Update from GitHub? [y/N]. Accepting runs:

uv tool install git+https://github.com/schuay/v8-utils.git --reinstall

After installation, rerun your command. Declining continues the command and suppresses checks for a day. Check failures silently continue; installation failures exit with an error and are not retried for the same stamp. Retry explicitly with pp upgrade.

Set auto_update = false at the top level of ~/.config/v8-utils/config.toml (or the file selected by V8_UTILS_CONFIG) to disable checks. For a one-off skip, use V8_UTILS_NO_AUTO_UPDATE=1 pp ... (also works for vt). Manual pp upgrade remains available regardless of these settings.

Checks apply to the full distribution installed by uv tool from PyPI or the upstream Git repository's default branch or main. Accepting a prompt on a PyPI install switches it to GitHub. Local/editable installs, pinned Git revisions, forks, and v8-utils-core are skipped. Noninteractive commands, --help, and vt create --json do not check. MCP integration is deferred.

To promote an update, increase the repository's root VERSION integer in the same commit as the change. The wheel bundles this file; the package metadata version is also 1984 for the initial PyPI release. Installation fetches the latest default branch, including changes since the stamp was bumped. Existing installs need one manual upgrade to acquire the checker. To roll back to a known commit:

V8_UTILS_NO_AUTO_UPDATE=1 uv tool install "git+https://github.com/schuay/v8-utils.git@<commit-sha>" --reinstall

Configuration

Create ~/.config/v8-utils/config.toml:

user = "you@chromium.org"

Run pp config to see all available options.

CLI tools

• pp — Pinpoint job management: create, list, inspect, compare results, watch with notifications. Run pp --help for usage.
• jsb — JetStream/Speedometer benchmark runner and result comparison.
• pd — Performance data analysis: change-point detection and AB comparison.

MCP server

v8-mcp exposes tools for use with AI assistants (Claude, Gemini, etc.):

• Pinpoint — create/list/inspect jobs, compare results
• Perf — hotspot analysis, flamegraphs, annotation, TMA, stat, diff
• Repository — git grep/find/log/show across configured repos
• Gerrit — fetch CLs and comments
• Godbolt — compile C/C++ snippets and inspect assembly, with llvm-mca and optimization remarks
• d8 — run scripts, trace index for navigating verbose V8 trace output

Add to your MCP client config (e.g. ~/.gemini/settings.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "v8-utils": {
      "command": "v8-mcp"
    }
  }
}