Writing search queries

Sourcebot uses a powerful regex-based query language that enabled precise code search within large codebases.

Syntax reference guide

Queries consist of space-separated regular expressions. Wrapping expressions in "" combines them. By default, a file must have at least one match for each expression to be included.

Example	Explanation
foo	Match files with regex /foo/
foo bar	Match files with regex /foo/ and /bar/
"foo bar"	Match files with regex /foo bar/

Multiple expressions can be or’d together with or, negated with -, or grouped with ().

Example	Explanation
foo or bar	Match files with regex /foo/ or /bar/
foo -bar	Match files with regex /foo/ but not /bar/
foo (bar or baz)	Match files with regex /foo/ and either /bar/ or /baz/

Expressions can be prefixed with certain keywords to modify search behavior. Some keywords can be negated using the - prefix.

Prefix	Description	Example
file:	Filter results from filepaths that match the regex. By default all files are searched.	file:README - Filter results to filepaths that match regex /README/ file:"my file" - Filter results to filepaths that match regex /my file/ -file:test\.ts$ - Ignore results from filepaths match regex /test\.ts$/
repo:	Filter results from repos that match the regex. By default all repos are searched.	repo:linux - Filter results to repos that match regex /linux/ -repo:^web/.* - Ignore results from repos that match regex /^web\/.*
rev:	Filter results from a specific branch or tag. By default only the default branch is searched.	rev:beta - Filter results to branches that match regex /beta/
lang:	Filter results by language (as defined by linguist). By default all languages are searched.	lang:TypeScript - Filter results to TypeScript files -lang:YAML - Ignore results from YAML files
sym:	Match symbol definitions created by universal ctags at index time.	sym:\bmain\b - Filter results to symbols that match regex /\bmain\b/
context:	Filter results to a predefined search context.	context:web - Filter results to the web context -context:pipelines - Ignore results from the pipelines context