NeoLuke: Lucene.NET Toolbox

A modern, cross-platform desktop GUI application for exploring and managing Apache Lucene.NET indexes. NeoLuke provides a clean, intuitive interface for developers and search engineers working with Lucene.NET or supported Lucene indexes.

Features

• Index Overview: View index statistics, segment information, and field details
• Documents: Browse and view documents in your index with full field details
• Search: Test queries with multiple analyzers and view relevance scores
• Analysis: Analyze text with different tokenizers and see token breakdowns
• Commits: View index file and segment details
• More Like This: Find similar documents using Lucene's MLT query
• Export Tools: Export term lists
• Index Management: Check and optimize your indexes
• Cross-Platform: Runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux

Requirements

• .NET 10.0 SDK or later

Quick Start

1. Clone and Build

git clone https://github.com/paulirwin/neoluke.git
cd neoluke
dotnet build

2. Generate a Sample Index (Optional)

If you don't have a Lucene index handy, you can generate a demo index with sample data:

# On Windows, macOS, or Linux with PowerShell installed
pwsh ./generate-demo.ps1

This will create a sample index in the demo/ directory with test documents you can use to explore NeoLuke's features.

3. Run the Application

dotnet run --project NeoLuke/NeoLuke.csproj

Or use the convenience script:

pwsh ./run.ps1

4. Open an Index

When NeoLuke starts, you'll be prompted to select a Lucene index directory:

1. Click Browse to navigate to your index folder (or use the demo index generated above at demo/)
2. Choose whether to open in read-only mode (recommended for production indexes)
3. Optionally expand Expert options to change settings
4. Click OK to open the index

Using NeoLuke

Overview Tab

View high-level statistics about your index including:

• Number of documents and fields
• Index version and format
• Segment information
• Field term distribution
• Top terms by frequency

Right-click on any term to search for it across your index.

Documents Tab

Browse documents by document ID:

• View all fields and their values
• See stored vs indexed field information
• Navigate between documents
• Copy field values

Search Tab

Test queries against your index:

• Enter queries using Lucene query syntax
• Preview the parsed query
• Choose from available analyzers
• View search results with relevance scores
• Right-click results to Explain scoring or Show all fields

Analysis Tab

Analyze how text is tokenized:

• Select an analyzer
• Enter text to analyze
• View the token stream with positions and attributes
• Click tokens to see detailed attributes

More Like This Tab

Find similar documents:

• Enter a document ID
• Select fields to use for similarity
• Adjust parameters (min term frequency, min doc frequency, etc.)
• View similar documents ranked by relevance

Commits Tab

Explore commit history:

• View all files in the index
• See segment details
• Inspect segment statistics

Logs Tab

Monitor application activity and debug issues with real-time logging.

Menu Features

File Menu

• Open Index: Switch to a different index
• Reopen Current Index: Reload the current index to see recent changes
• Reopen Current Index as Read/Write (or Read-Only): Change access mode of the current index
• Close Index: Close the current index

Tools Menu

• Optimize Index: Reduce the number of segments (write mode only)
• Check Index: Validate index integrity
• Export Terms: Export term lists to CSV or text files

Development

Running Tests

dotnet test

Project Structure

lukenet/
├── NeoLuke/                # Main application
│   ├── Assets/             # Static assets (icons, images)
│   ├── Models/             # Data models
│   ├── Services/           # Application services
│   ├── ViewModels/         # MVVM view models
│   └── Views/              # Avalonia XAML views
├── NeoLuke.Tests/          # Unit and integration tests
├── NeoLuke.DemoGenerator/  # Demo index generator
├── demo/                   # Sample index (generated)
└── docs/                   # Documentation (mostly for AI agent use)

Architecture

NeoLuke follows the MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel) pattern using:

• Avalonia UI - Cross-platform desktop framework
• CommunityToolkit.Mvvm - MVVM helpers and observable properties
• Lucene.Net 4.8.0 - Full-text search engine library

See CLAUDE.md for detailed architecture documentation.

This application was mostly vibe-coded using Claude Code.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! This project is a "spirit port" of Apache Lucene's Luke tool, modernized for .NET with Avalonia UI.

Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

License

This project is licensed under the GPL-3.0 License. See the LICENSE file for details.

Acknowledgments

• Inspired by Apache Lucene's Luke tool
• Built with Avalonia UI
• Powered by Lucene.NET