dedsec-xu/needle

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

★ 3RustAudience · developerComplexity · 3/5LicenseSetup · moderate

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((Needle))
    What it does
      Whole-machine search
      Sub-millisecond speed
      NTFS MFT index
    Architecture
      Admin daemon service
      Non-elevated MCP frontend
      Local TCP connection
    Usage
      fast_glob tool
      MCP protocol
      Claude Code support
    Platform
      Windows only
      NTFS volumes
      Rust binary

mindmap root((Needle)) What it does Whole-machine search Sub-millisecond speed NTFS MFT index Architecture Admin daemon service Non-elevated MCP frontend Local TCP connection Usage fast_glob tool MCP protocol Claude Code support Platform Windows only NTFS volumes Rust binary

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Let a Claude Code or other AI agent find files anywhere on a Windows machine, including outside the current project, in milliseconds.

USE CASE 2

Use fast_glob to locate every .env file or private key on a Windows machine as part of a security audit workflow.

USE CASE 3

Find all node_modules or build output directories across multiple drives to identify disk space candidates for cleanup.

What is it built with?

RustWindowsMCPNTFS

How does it compare?

	dedsec-xu/needle	codeitlikemiley/antigravity-sdk-rust	ruckieofficial/rusty-nano-frame
Stars	3	3	3
Language	Rust	Rust	Rust
Setup difficulty	moderate	hard	hard
Complexity	3/5	4/5	4/5
Audience	developer	developer	developer

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

Requires Windows with NTFS volumes, one-time UAC elevation to install the daemon service, and MCP client configuration.

Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

In plain English

Needle is a Windows file-search tool written in Rust that lets AI coding agents find any file on an entire computer in under a millisecond. Instead of walking through folders one by one, it reads the NTFS Master File Table (a low-level index that Windows keeps of every file on every drive) directly and keeps that data in memory. When a file changes on disk, Needle updates its index immediately by monitoring the NTFS USN Journal, a built-in Windows change log. The tool is designed to be used by AI agents (like Claude Code) through a protocol called MCP (Model Context Protocol). It exposes a single tool called fast_glob, which accepts a pattern like **/*.pdf or **/2024 and returns matching file paths from across all NTFS drives on the machine in one lookup. This lets an agent find things it has no prior location for, such as a config file buried under a user profile, a sibling code repository on a secondary drive, or every node_modules folder consuming disk space across multiple projects. Because reading the NTFS MFT requires administrator access, Needle uses a two-process design. A background daemon runs as a Windows service with system-level permissions and handles all the index building and querying. The MCP component that the agent actually talks to runs without elevated permissions and forwards requests to the daemon over a local network connection on the same machine. The daemon is installed once (requiring a one-time UAC prompt), after which it starts automatically at every reboot and uses no CPU while idle. Needle is installed from a prebuilt Windows binary available in the Releases section, through the Scoop package manager, or by building from source with Rust's Cargo toolchain. After installing the daemon service and registering the MCP server with your agent's configuration file, the fast_glob tool becomes available to the agent for whole-machine file lookups. Needle searches file names and paths only, not file contents. The project is MIT-licensed and Windows-only, specifically requiring NTFS volumes.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1

I've installed the Needle MCP server on Windows with Claude Code. Write a CLAUDE.md instruction that tells the agent to prefer fast_glob over the built-in Glob for whole-machine file lookups.

Prompt 2

How do I install the Needle daemon as a Windows service and then register the MCP server with Claude Code step by step?

Prompt 3

Use Needle's fast_glob to find every PDF on all my Windows drives that has '2024' in the filename, then list them sorted by folder.

Prompt 4

I want to audit every .env file on my Windows machine using Needle. What fast_glob patterns should I use and what should an agent do with the results?

Frequently asked questions

What is needle?

A Rust MCP server for Windows that lets AI agents find any file on the entire machine in under a millisecond, using the NTFS Master File Table as an in-memory index.

What language is needle written in?

Mainly Rust. The stack also includes Rust, Windows, MCP.

What license does needle use?

Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

How hard is needle to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated moderate, with roughly 30min to a first successful run.

Who is needle for?

Mainly developer.

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