--- title: Choosing a Profile | CodeWeaver Docs description: CodeWeaver is a code search engine for AI agents, designed to provide precise results that give agents exactly what they need for their tasks -- no more, no less. url: "https://docs.knitli.com/guides/profiles" type: static generatedAt: "2026-04-17T17:21:09.981Z" --- # Choosing a Profile [Open in ChatGPT](https://chatgpt.com/?q=Read%20https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.knitli.com%2Fcodeweaver%2Fguides%2Fprofiles%2F.%20I%20want%20to%20ask%20questions%20about%20it.)[Open in Claude](https://claude.ai/new?q=Read%20https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.knitli.com%2Fcodeweaver%2Fguides%2Fprofiles%2F.%20I%20want%20to%20ask%20questions%20about%20it.)[View in Markdown](/codeweaver/guides/profiles.md) [Share on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.knitli.com%2Fcodeweaver%2Fguides%2Fprofiles%2F)[Share on X](https://x.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.knitli.com%2Fcodeweaver%2Fguides%2Fprofiles%2F&text=Choosing%20a%20Profile)[Share on Threads](https://threads.net/intent/post?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.knitli.com%2Fcodeweaver%2Fguides%2Fprofiles%2F&text=Choosing%20a%20Profile)[Share on Bluesky](https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=Choosing%20a%20Profile%20https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.knitli.com%2Fcodeweaver%2Fguides%2Fprofiles%2F)[Share on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.knitli.com%2Fcodeweaver%2Fguides%2Fprofiles%2F)[Share on Reddit](https://reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.knitli.com%2Fcodeweaver%2Fguides%2Fprofiles%2F&title=Choosing%20a%20Profile)[Share on Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitlink?u=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.knitli.com%2Fcodeweaver%2Fguides%2Fprofiles%2F&t=Choosing%20a%20Profile)[Share on Email](mailto:?subject=Choosing%20a%20Profile&body=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.knitli.com%2Fcodeweaver%2Fguides%2Fprofiles%2F)[Share on WhatsApp](https://wa.me/?text=Choosing%20a%20Profile%20https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.knitli.com%2Fcodeweaver%2Fguides%2Fprofiles%2F)[Share on Telegram](https://t.me/share/url?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.knitli.com%2Fcodeweaver%2Fguides%2Fprofiles%2F&text=Choosing%20a%20Profile) # Choosing a Profile [Section titled “Choosing a Profile”](#choosing-a-profile) > **TL;DR:** CodeWeaver uses Profiles to simplify setup. Use `recommended` for production-grade search (Voyage AI) or `quickstart` for a free, local-only experience (FastEmbed). Profiles save you from manual configuration by bundling optimized provider settings. CodeWeaver offers three primary profiles to meet different cost, performance, and privacy requirements. You can select a profile during initialization with `cw init --profile `. --- ## Profile Comparison [Section titled “Profile Comparison”](#profile-comparison) | Feature | `recommended` | `quickstart` | `testing` | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | **Best For** | Production, High Precision | Local Dev, Privacy | CI/CD, Unit Tests | | **Cloud/Local** | Hybrid (Cloud + Local) | 100% Local | 100% In-Memory | | **Embedding** | Voyage AI (Cloud) | FastEmbed (Local) | FastEmbed (Local) | | **Vector Store** | Qdrant (Local/Cloud) | Qdrant (Local) | In-Memory | | **Reranking** | Voyage AI (Cloud) | FastEmbed (Local) | None | | **Cost** | API Usage Fees | **Free** | **Free** | | **Search Quality** | **Exquisite** | Good | Minimal | | **API Keys** | Required (Voyage AI) | **None** | **None** | --- ## 1. The `recommended` Profile [Section titled “1. The recommended Profile”](#1-the-recommended-profile) This is our flagship configuration designed for professional AI agents. It leverages **Voyage AI**’s state-of-the-art code embedding models. - **Why choose it:** You need the highest possible search precision to prevent agent hallucinations. - **Requirement:** A Voyage AI API key (`VOYAGE_API_KEY`). - **Resilience:** Includes the automatic “Safety Net” (FastEmbed) for cloud outages. ## 2. The `quickstart` Profile [Section titled “2. The quickstart Profile”](#2-the-quickstart-profile) Perfect for individual developers or teams working on sensitive, airgapped codebases. - **Why choose it:** You want a completely free experience with no external API dependencies, or you need to keep 100% of your code on your machine. - **Mechanism:** Uses `fastembed` and `sentence-transformers` to run models directly on your CPU/GPU. - **Search Quality:** Highly capable, though slightly less precise than specialized cloud models. ## 3. The `testing` Profile [Section titled “3. The testing Profile”](#3-the-testing-profile) Designed for automated testing and continuous integration. - **Why choose it:** You need a volatile, high-speed environment for unit or integration tests that doesn’t persist data to disk. - **Mechanism:** Uses an in-memory vector store and the lightest weight models available. --- ## Switching Profiles [Section titled “Switching Profiles”](#switching-profiles) You can switch profiles at any time by re-running the initialization command. Note that switching profiles may require you to re-index your codebase if the embedding dimensions change. *Terminal window* ``` # Switch to the free local profilecw init --profile quickstart --force # Re-index to use the new local modelscw index --force ``` --- ## Which one should I use? [Section titled “Which one should I use?”](#which-one-should-i-use) - **“I’m building a professional tool for my team.”** → Use `recommended`. - **“I just want to try CodeWeaver for free.”** → Use `quickstart`. - **“I’m running this on my laptop with no internet.”** → Use `quickstart`. - **“I’m writing a test suite for my CodeWeaver plugin.”** → Use `testing`.