searching-codebases

Find code in any codebase by regex pattern or natural language concept. Auto-routes between n-gram indexed regex search (2-20x faster than ripgrep) and TF-IDF semantic search. Expands results to full functions via tree-sitting AST data. For Python sources, a binding-resolved reference/definition tier (pyright, via python-lsp) finds real callers and definitions without same-name false positives.

Features

• Dual search modes — regex (pattern/identifier) and semantic (natural language concepts), auto-routed per query
• N-gram indexed regex — sparse inverted index narrows candidate files by 90-99% before ripgrep verification
• TF-IDF semantic search — cosine similarity ranking over code chunks (functions, classes)
• Binding-resolved Python tier — --refs/--def/--hover via pyright: true find-all-callers and go-to-definition that exclude same-named, unrelated symbols and follow imports. Engaged lazily; degrades to the regex text path when pyright/node is unavailable
• AST context expansion — --expand returns complete function/class bodies instead of line fragments
• Flexible sources — accepts GitHub URLs, local directories, uploaded files/archives, or project knowledge
• Mixed queries — multiple queries with different modes in a single invocation; indexes built once per mode

Dependencies

• ripgrep — required for regex verification
• tree-sitting — auto-installs the bare tree-sitter package when needed: for --expand context and for the symbol→position resolution that seeds the binding-resolved tier (grammars ship bundled). Regex and semantic search work without it
• scikit-learn — required for semantic mode (auto-installs)
• python-lsp — provides the binding-resolved tier (--refs/--def/--hover); self-bootstraps pyright on first use and needs system node (v18+). Without it those flags degrade to the regex text path

Skill folder: searching-codebases

Release of searching-codebases version 2.2.0

📥 Download & Install

⬇️ Download searching-codebases.zip

To install:

1. Click the download link above (ignore the "Source code" archives below - they're auto-generated by GitHub)
2. Go to Claude.ai Skills Settings
3. Upload the downloaded ZIP file
4. Requires paid Claude Pro or Team account

See official documentation for more details.

Recent Changes

91fafe7 searching-codebases 2.2.0: narrow to binding-resolved edge case (#722)
3568c35 docs(searching-codebases): refresh README to current — binding-resolved tier, tree-sitting deps
a5e6a03 docs: Update CHANGELOG.md for released skills