arc-search

name	arc-search
description	Search indexed corpora using semantic (vector) OR full-text (keyword) search via the arc CLI. Use when the user asks to search, find, look up, or query a corpus, collection, knowledge base, codebase, docs, PDFs, or markdown. Covers both conceptual queries and exact-term lookups.
allowed-tools	Bash(arc:*), Read

arc search

A corpus is dual-indexed: semantic search hits Qdrant, full-text search hits MeiliSearch. Both are first-class — pick the one that matches the query, and use both when unsure.

Choose the right mode

Use semantic when the query is:

• Conceptual or paraphrased ("how does auth work")
• A natural-language question
• About meaning or intent
• Cross-domain ("rate limiting strategies")

Use text (full-text) when the query is:

• An exact identifier, symbol, error string, or file name
• A specific function name, class, CLI flag, or env var
• A literal phrase the user expects to appear verbatim
• A known acronym, ticket ID, version string, or quoted text

When unsure, run BOTH and merge results. Full-text is cheap and often surfaces hits semantic misses (rare tokens, code symbols, exact error messages). Do not default to semantic alone.

Discover what's available

arc collection list                    # show every corpus/collection
arc corpus info MyCorpus               # inspect one corpus (both sides)

Semantic search (Qdrant)

arc search semantic "QUERY" --corpus NAME [OPTIONS]

Options:

• --corpus NAME — repeat for multi-corpus search (--corpus A --corpus B)
• --limit N — number of results (default small; raise for broad surveys)
• --offset N — pagination
• --score-threshold 0.0-1.0 — drop low-confidence hits
• --filter "key=value" or --filter '{"key":"value"}' — metadata filter
• --vector-name NAME — pick a specific embedding model (auto-detected otherwise)
• --json — structured output for parsing
• -v / --verbose — show scores and metadata

Full-text search (MeiliSearch)

arc search text "QUERY" --corpus NAME [OPTIONS]

Options:

• --corpus NAME — repeat for multi-corpus search
• --limit N, --offset N — pagination
• --filter "key=value" or --filter '{"key":"value"}' — metadata filter
• --json, -v — same as semantic

Note: full-text has no --score-threshold or --vector-name (no embeddings involved).

Common patterns

# Find a function by name — full-text wins
arc search text "parse_frontmatter" --corpus Code

# Conceptual question — semantic wins
arc search semantic "how is the embedding cache invalidated" --corpus Code

# Unknown — run both
arc search semantic "retry backoff" --corpus Docs --limit 5
arc search text "retry backoff" --corpus Docs --limit 5

# Multi-corpus
arc search semantic "auth flow" --corpus Code --corpus Docs

# Filtered (e.g. only python files)
arc search text "TODO" --corpus Code --filter "language=python" --json

Subcommand placement

The subcommand (semantic | text) MUST come before the query:

• ✅ arc search semantic "query" --corpus X
• ❌ arc search "query" --corpus X --semantic
• ❌ arc search --corpus X "query"