| name | spec-search |
| description | Full-text search over the March language reference (specs/lang), internals reference (specs/impl), and feature design docs (specs/features) — ~44 files, ~20-25k lines. Use this whenever a March language/semantics/design question isn't answered by march-lang's condensed quick-reference: deeper actor/supervision semantics, refinement types, session types, module system, capabilities, linear types, or any "how does March handle X" question. Works in any March project — the docs and index are bundled with this skill, not read from the current repo. |
March Spec Search
A SQLite FTS5 index over March's language/design docs, bundled with this
skill so it works in any March project without that project needing its own
copy of specs/lang/.
When to use this vs. march-lang
march-lang — always-loaded quick-reference for the most common syntax
mistakes (conditionals, lambdas, visibility, etc). Check there first.spec-search (this skill) — on-demand deep search when the question goes
beyond that quick-reference: full semantics, design rationale, actor
supervision trees, refinement predicates, session types, capabilities,
module/interface resolution rules, etc.
How to search
Run the bundled query script, using this skill's own base directory (shown
in the tool result when this skill was invoked):
<skill-base-dir>/spec-search.sh --json -n 5 "<query>"
This returns a JSON array of hits, each with file, heading_path,
lineno, end_lineno, snippet, score (lower score = better bm25
match, results are already sorted best-first).
Query tips:
- Use a few keywords, not a full sentence — e.g.
"actor supervision restart",
not "how do actors restart after a crash".
- Each word is matched as a literal token ANDed together; there's no need to
quote or escape anything yourself.
Reading the matched section
Do not read the whole file — some chapters are 1000+ lines. For each
promising hit, Read only the matched section using lineno/end_lineno:
Read(file_path="<skill-base-dir>/docs/<hit.file>", offset=<hit.lineno>, limit=<hit.end_lineno - hit.lineno>)
<hit.file> is relative to <skill-base-dir>/docs/, e.g. lang/actors.md or
features/module-system.md.
If the top hit's section doesn't fully answer the question, check the next
1-2 hits, or re-run the search with different keywords — don't guess past
what the index actually returned.
Notes
- This skill's
docs/ and spec-search.db are a point-in-time snapshot
(see <skill-base-dir>/spec-search.db's meta table for the source
commit/date), refreshed manually from the March compiler repo. If an
answer seems inconsistent with the actual installed March compiler's
behavior, prefer the compiler's own error messages and specs/ if
present in the current project over this snapshot.
