searching-text

iota9star's avatarfrom iota9star

Performs fast text search with one-shot patterns that minimize iterations by getting files, lines, and context in a single call. Use this skill when searching for text patterns, finding specific code locations, or getting context around matches

⭐5stars🔀0forks📁View on GitHub🕐Updated Dec 24, 2025
[Developer Tools]

When & Why to Use This Skill

This Claude skill provides high-performance text search capabilities powered by ripgrep, designed to streamline code exploration and pattern matching. By utilizing efficient one-shot patterns, it retrieves files, line numbers, and surrounding context in a single call, significantly reducing iteration cycles and optimizing context usage for developers working on large-scale codebases.

Use Cases

  • Rapid Code Discovery: Quickly locate specific function definitions, variable declarations, or logic patterns across an entire repository without manual browsing.
  • Efficient Refactoring: Identify all instances of deprecated APIs, hardcoded strings, or specific patterns to facilitate batch replacements and code cleanup.
  • Contextual Debugging: Search for error messages or log patterns and retrieve surrounding code lines to understand the execution flow and root cause of issues.
  • Automated Workflow Integration: Combine search results with other tools like 'sd' for mass editing or 'fzf' for interactive filtering within a development pipeline.
namesearching-text
descriptionPerforms fast text search with one-shot patterns that minimize iterations by getting files, lines, and context in a single call. Use this skill when searching for text patterns, finding specific code locations, or getting context around matches

ripgrep: Powerful, one-shot text search

Always invoke ripgrep skill for text search - do not execute bash commands directly.

Default Strategy

Invoke ripgrep skill for fast text search with one-shot patterns. Use -e 'pattern' -n -C 2 to get files, line numbers, and context in a single call.

This minimizes iterations and context usage. Always prefer getting line numbers and surrounding context over multiple search attempts.

Common workflow: ripgrep skill → other skills (fzf, bat, sd, analyzing-code-structure) for interactive selection, preview, or modification.

Tool Selection

Grep tool (built on ripgrep) - Use for structured searches:

  • Basic pattern matching with structured output
  • File type filtering with type parameter
  • When special flags like -F, -v, -w, or pipe composition are not needed
  • Handles 95% of search needs

Bash(rg) - Use for one-shot searches needing special flags or composition:

  • Fixed string search (-F)
  • Invert match (-v)
  • Word boundaries (-w)
  • Context lines with patterns (-n -C 2)
  • Pipe composition (| head, | wc -l, | sort)
  • Default choice for efficient one-shot results

Glob tool - Use for file name/path matching only (not content search)

When to Load Detailed Reference

Load ripgrep guide when needing:

  • One-shot search pattern templates
  • Effective flag combinations for complex searches
  • Pipe composition patterns
  • File type filters reference (-t flags)
  • Performance optimization for large result sets
  • Pattern syntax examples
  • Translation between Grep tool and rg commands

The guide focuses on practical patterns for getting targeted results in minimal calls.

Pipeline Combinations

  • rg | fzf: Interactive selection from search results
  • rg | sd: Batch replacements on search results
  • rg | xargs: Execute commands on matched files

Skill Combinations

For Discovery Phase

  • fd → ripgrep: Find files of specific type, then search within them
  • extracting-code-structure → ripgrep: Understand structure, then search for specific patterns
  • jq/yq → ripgrep: Extract field values, then search for their usage

For Analysis Phase

  • ripgrep → fzf: Interactive selection from search matches
  • ripgrep → bat: View matched files with syntax highlighting
  • ripgrep → ast-grep: After finding text patterns, apply structural changes

For Refactoring Phase

  • ripgrep → sd: Replace found patterns with new content
  • ripgrep → xargs: Execute commands on all matching files
  • ripgrep → tokei: Get statistics for files containing specific patterns
  • ripgrep → analyzing-code-structure: After finding text patterns, apply structural changes

Integration Examples

# Find and edit all references to a function
rg "functionName" -l | fzf --multi --preview="bat --color=always --highlight-line $(rg -n "functionName" {} | head -1 | cut -d: -f2) {}" | xargs vim

# Find TODOs and create summary
rg "TODO|FIXME" -n | fzf --multi --preview="bat --color=always --highlight-line {2} {1}"