| name | tensor-grep |
| description | Use when searching code, logs, or repositories with tensor-grep; validating rg or AST parity; using tg MCP tools; checking GPU/search routing; or producing agent-friendly context, source, refs, or blast-radius output. |
tensor-grep (tg)
Current State
release_docs_current_tag: v1.113.6
As of 2026-08-22, the current tagged version is v1.113.6, and the latest complete public PyPI/release-asset distribution is also v1.113.6 — verified PER-ARTIFACT, 4/4 (the macosx_11_0_arm64, manylinux_2_39_x86_64 and win_amd64 wheels plus the sdist). HISTORICAL, still true of those tags: v1.111.2 is TAGGED AND NOT PUBLISHED (ZERO files on PyPI) and v1.111.1 carries only 2 of 4 artifacts, so Windows and source installs on that line resolved to v1.111.0. Both were PYPI-SIZE-CAP casualties; the cap was cleared on 2026-08-21 (10.734 → 4.747 GB), which is why v1.111.3 could publish. See docs/BACKLOG.md. Verify a release by its expected filename set, never by the version appearing (A124). Stable installer, PyPI metadata refresh, release-native asset publication, managed-native front-door refresh after tg upgrade, stale tensor-grep-owned tg.com bridge refresh after upgrade, native-front-door CLI parity for advertised public flags, Windows .cmd quoted-pattern launcher handling, native-first Windows PATH ordering, top-level validation-command JSON, local default classify, classify provider provenance, fixed multi-pattern native CPU search, GPU scale benchmark correctness gates, launcher-route observability, benchmark launcher attribution, scoped GPU device probing, benchmark launcher warnings, the opt-in tg agent Actionable Context Capsule, mixed-language capsule confidence/validation alignment, GPU benchmark recommendation hygiene, edit JSON/rollback safety, capsule validation-trust fixes, explicit language/file-name ranking, quoted Windows validation commands, docs governance, $file / {file} validation placeholder substitution, native CUDA correctness gates, ambiguous capsule alternatives, root help-menu diagnostics, foreign launcher diagnostics, benchmark promotion-gate taxonomy, agent workflow benchmark governance, capsule alternative-confidence capping, generic provider-token secrets-basic regex rules, release-docs synchronization, release wheel Cargo prefetch retries, native GPU/search accuracy hardening, explicit Windows Python subprocess launcher repair, agent capsule hardcase routing, Windows subprocess bridge ranking hardening, broad multi-project workspace-root scan guardrails, tg doctor Windows shell escaping diagnostics, and long-lived agent-loop memory/cache caps are in the public v1.113.6 GitHub asset and PyPI release line.
Recent v1.13.40-v1.13.42 hardening (newest behavior agents should rely on):
- Verified upgrades & installs:
tg upgrade (and the detached Windows refresh helper) plus every installer -- install.sh, install.ps1, npm, Homebrew, and winget -- verify the downloaded native binary against the published CHECKSUMS.txt and fail closed on a missing or mismatched digest.
- MCP apply safety: the
tg_rewrite_apply MCP tool refuses free-form lint_cmd / test_cmd (which shell-execute on the host) unless the operator opts in with TG_MCP_ALLOW_VALIDATION_COMMANDS=1; otherwise it returns code="unsupported_option".
- grep parity:
tg search --cpu -v now includes blank lines, and --json / --vimgrep columns are byte offsets (ripgrep-accurate on non-ASCII lines).
- Agentic-edit integrity: the audit-manifest chain records only verified manifests (a tampered manifest is no longer folded into the tamper-evident history), and the trigram index deserializer is hardened against a preallocation/OOM DoS from a crafted
.tensor-grep index.
- Supply chain: the
[tool.uv].constraint-dependencies security floors track the latest patched releases, third-party GitHub Actions are SHA-pinned (the one allow-listed exception is dtolnay/rust-toolchain@stable, intentionally channel-pinned — see the validator exemption in scripts/validate_release_assets.py), and the Dependency & License Audit gate is green.
Current release facts:
Current product read:
rg remains the benchmark for raw cold exact-text search.ast-grep remains the structural-search feature/performance baseline; tg run is a validated useful slice, not full ast-grep equivalence.tg is strongest as agent-native code intelligence: scoped search, JSON/NDJSON, repo maps, defs, source, refs, callers, context bundles, blast-radius, AST search, rewrite planning, GPU inventory, and MCP.- The native front door must accept advertised public flags or intentionally route them to the sidecar. The current release line covers
tg search --files, tg search --multiline / -U, tg search --null, tg run -r, tg classify --format json, advertised rg-style search flags, option-first root tg ... forwarding, Windows .cmd quoted multi-word no-match patterns, native-first Windows PATH ordering for fresh managed shells, and launcher-route observability for current-process versus fresh-shell PATH drift. Root shortcut syntax should preserve common search flags: use tg PATTERN PATH, tg -t js PATTERN PATH, or tg --count-matches PATTERN PATH when you want the root entrypoint to behave as tg search ....
- The current release line keeps Python/dev and native/public search flag surfaces aligned for accepted rg-compatibility aliases such as
--passthrough, --unicode, --auto-hybrid-regex, and tg search --version; top-level structured search flags such as tg --json --no-ignore PATTERN PATH must parse through the native front door; tg new must either create the requested scaffold under the requested base directory or fail before writing files; edit-plan, MCP tg_edit_plan, and session edit-plan should accept max_sources / max_tokens for agent command-surface parity while still emitting no rendered source text.
- The quoted multi-word no-match pattern case from
cmd.exe, direct tg.cmd, and Python subprocess.run([...]) is a public Windows launcher contract. A split pattern can become a shorter false-positive search plus bogus paths, so keep public-windows-launcher-quoted-patterns in the fast agent-readiness gate.
- Stable managed installs should prefer the matching release-native CPU front door when the GitHub release asset exists, while keeping the isolated Python environment as sidecar/fallback via and . Installer changes should preserve the staged replacement contract so a failed install cannot break an existing public shim, including checking native installer command exit codes before the staged swap. On Windows, the managed native front-door directory should be ahead of compatibility shim directories on PATH so , unprofiled PowerShell, and Python subprocess calls resolve before the slower argv-safe bridge. If a copied tensor-grep bridge is used to outrank a foreign same-directory , it must still discover for sidecar commands and point back to the managed native front door. Python subprocess resolution must be checked directly because can choose a foreign route that shell hides. must verify the sidecar import/version before claiming success, including the scheduled Windows self-upgrade path, and managed native front doors must be refreshed when the verified sidecar version moves ahead of .
Dogfood follow-up workflow:
- Split dogfood feedback into PR-sized slices with one behavioral theme per branch; do not collapse independent fixes into one broad PR.
- Use Exa research before coding when the slice depends on current external behavior such as
rg -F -e, ast-grep, CUDA/Blackwell support, GitHub Actions, release packaging, or agent-evaluation harnesses.
- Run a thinktank or equivalent independent planning review for benchmark interpretation, GPU promotion policy, product positioning, and release workflow changes.
- Ask Gemini for a bounded read-only diff review before each PR merge, then verify any finding locally before changing code.
- For every slice: start with the contract test, implement the smallest fix, run the targeted suite, run lint and format, push the PR, wait for PR CI, squash-merge, then watch main CI.
- Maintain a per-slice evidence ledger for dogfood follow-up work. Each slice entry must record PR order, slice scope, Exa research anchors, thinktank or planning consensus, subagent ownership, Gemini review result, validation commands, PR CI, and main CI. Optional or triggered items may be marked
not applicable only with a rationale.
- For release-bearing slices, final status also requires semantic-release, release assets, PyPI/package publication, and public release dogfood evidence.
Current dogfood slice ledger:
- Per-slice dogfood and release evidence lives in PR descriptions,
CHANGELOG.md, and GitHub release notes (the inline ledger drifted out of date). Follow the workflow above per slice and the Release Completion Contract below for release-bearing slices.
Known current weak spots:
- Broad
tg search --files ... over generated artifact trees and multi-project workspace roots is now guarded when unbounded, but still scope file-list commands to the smallest useful root for latency, disk, and token budget.
- Windows command resolution must be checked across profiled PowerShell,
pwsh -NoProfile, and cmd. Verified tensor-grep-owned Python*\Scripts\tg.exe launchers ahead of the managed native front door should be removed by the Windows installer or tg repair-launcher; self-identifying orphaned tensor-grep Python Scripts launchers should be backed up by tg repair-launcher; any recurrence is release-regression evidence. A Python*\Scripts\tg.exe that reports another product's version is a foreign PATH-shadow blocker instead: report/remediate it, but do not delete it automatically.
- WSL and Git Bash no-extension shims are part of the Windows installer contract. Verify WSL with
wsl bash -lc 'tg --version' after shim changes.
- In PowerShell, invoke
tg or tg.ps1 for regex metacharacters. Direct tg.cmd invocation with unescaped | is parsed by cmd.exe before the batch file receives argv.
tg --version is one-line by default for scripts; use tg --version --verbose for feature/SIMD/Arrow details.- Installed help should show
Usage: tg, not Usage: python -m tensor_grep.
impact --symbol can be noisier than blast-radius; use blast-radius for direct symbol impact.validation_commands can be heuristic and should be treated as hints.validation_plan[] rows should include detection (detected, heuristic, or generic). JavaScript package-manager commands require package.json evidence; Python commands require tests, project markers, or Python layout evidence; when no runner evidence exists, emit no command rather than a fake npm test or uv run pytest.- Validation commands must align with the selected primary target language unless verified cross-language dependency evidence exists.
validation_alignment reports filtered mismatches; do not silently pair a TypeScript primary target with pytest-only validation or a Python primary target with JS-only validation.
Release Completion Contract
A branch push or open PR starts PR CI only. It is not a release, not a released version, and not complete release state.
Release versioning starts only after a release-bearing PR is squash-merged to main, because semantic-release reads the final main commit subject.
A release-bearing PR is complete only after PR CI passes, the PR is squash-merged to main, main CI and semantic-release complete successfully, the release commit and tag exist on origin/main, publish-success-gate passes, git fetch origin main --tags is run, agents fast-forward local main to the release commit, and PyPI/public installer availability is verified.
Do not report final version state before the GitHub release, PyPI/package publish status, public install/update path, and local checkout have all been verified.
Start Here
Confirm command resolution and version before trusting behavior:
Get-Command tg -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Format-List Source,CommandType,Version
Get-Command tg -All -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Format-Table -AutoSize CommandType,Source,Version
Get-Alias tg -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Format-List Definition,ResolvedCommandName
tg --version
cmd /c tg --version
pwsh -NoProfile -Command "tg --version"
cmd /c tg doctor --json
pwsh -NoProfile -Command "tg doctor --json"
where.exe tg
uv run tg doctor --json
On Windows, tg doctor --json includes shell_escaping_guidance. Use it to catch PowerShell $NAME expansion and cmd.exe metacharacter escaping issues before blaming tg parsing.
Release dogfood checklist:
gh release view <tag>
pip index versions tensor-grep
uvx --refresh-package tensor-grep --from tensor-grep==<tag> tg --version
tg upgrade
cmd /c tg --version
pwsh -NoProfile -Command "tg --version"
tg doctor --json
Use scoped tg discovery first:
tg search --fixed-strings "<query>" src tests docs README.md
tg search --json "<query>" src tests docs
tg search --ndjson "<query>" src tests docs
Avoid broad generated-root or whole-workspace file lists unless the task needs them:
# Avoid this unless the whole workspace scan is intentional:
tg search --files C:\dev\projects --hidden --no-ignore
Use one of these instead for agent-safe file discovery:
tg search --files . --hidden --glob "AGENTS.md"
tg search --files src --hidden
tg search --files . --hidden --glob "*.py"
tg search --files . --hidden --max-depth 3
Only pass --allow-broad-generated-scan when the generated/cache/dependency tree walk is intentional.
Core CLI Workflows
| Task | Command |
|---|
| Basic search | tg "pattern" [path] |
| Explicit search | tg search "pattern" src tests docs |
| Fixed string | tg -F "literal.string" src |
| Context lines | tg -C 3 "pattern" src |
| JSON aggregate | tg search --json "pattern" src |
| NDJSON stream | tg search --ndjson "pattern" src tests docs |
| Files with matches | tg search "pattern" src --files-with-matches |
| AST search | tg run --lang python function_definition src --json |
| AST language identifiers | tg ast-info --json |
| Source lookup | tg source src someSymbol --json |
| Refs lookup | tg refs src someSymbol --json |
| Blast radius | tg blast-radius src someSymbol --json |
| Context bundle | tg context-render src --query "how routing works" --render-profile llm --json |
| Device inventory | tg devices --json |
| MCP server | tg mcp |
| LSP setup | tg lsp-setup [--json] |
| LSP server | tg lsp --provider native or tg lsp --provider hybrid |
| Edit Planning | tg edit-plan src --query "change invoice tax" |
| Interactive Session | tg session open [PATH] --json |
| Session Daemon | tg session daemon start [PATH] --json |
| Create Checkpoint (Rewind) | tg checkpoint create [PATH] --json |
AST structural patterns are exact. A pattern such as 'def $NAME($$$ARGS): $$$BODY'
does not match Python functions with return annotations; use node-kind search such as
function_definition or a tg scan rule with kind: function_definition when the
task is to enumerate all functions regardless of signature shape.
Advanced Features: LSP, Editing, and Checkpoints (Rewind)
1. LSP (Language Server Protocol) Integration
tensor-grep contains an optional LSP coordinator for semantic navigation experiments (defs, source, refs, callers, blast-radius).
- Setup: Run
tg lsp-setup [--json] to install managed LSP providers into ~/.tensor-grep/providers.
- Diagnostics: Run
tg doctor --with-lsp --json and inspect health_status, health_check, lsp_proof, lsp_evidence_status, and not_lsp_proof_reason.
- Server: Run
tg lsp --provider native, tg lsp --provider lsp, or tg lsp --provider hybrid. Provider availability is not navigation proof.
2. Machine-Readable Edit-Planning and Sessions
For agentic editing loops, tg supports structured edit tracking and map caches.
- Edit Plan:
tg edit-plan constructs a plan of edits across files matching a natural language query, specifying targets and files to touch.
- Session Open:
tg session open [PATH] --json creates a cached repo-map session for repeated edit loops.
- Session Refresh:
tg session refresh <session_id> [PATH] --json refreshes the cached repo map and performs added/removed/modified file discovery.
- Session Daemon:
tg session daemon start [PATH] --json starts or reuses the warm localhost daemon for repeated repo-map and symbol requests. Daemon edit-plan/context requests keep a short connect probe and a longer work response timeout. Top-level native-provider tg context-render and tg edit-plan reuse an already-running daemon via an implicit session keyed by root and --max-repo-files. tg session list and tg session daemon status discover nearby scopes when the current directory has no direct session metadata.
3. Checkpoints & Rollbacks (Rewind)
Before initiating a complex code rewrite, agents should create a checkpoint when rollback evidence matters.
- Checkpoint Creation:
tg checkpoint create [PATH] --json creates a checkpoint scoped to the current editable tree or supplied path.
- Listing Checkpoints:
tg checkpoint list [PATH] --json lists available checkpoints; add --discover to recursively discover checkpoint scopes.
- Undo / Rollback (Rewind):
tg checkpoint undo <checkpoint_id> [PATH] --json restores the selected checkpoint for that scope.
PowerShell expands $NAME and $$$ARGS inside double quotes. For literal patterns, use single quotes or escape $. In cmd.exe, quote or caret-escape metacharacters such as |, &, <, >, ^, (, and ).
MCP Surface
Start the server with:
tg mcp
Useful MCP tools include:
tg_mcp_capabilitiestg_searchtg_ast_searchtg_classify_logstg_devicestg_index_searchtg_rewrite_plantg_rewrite_applytg_rewrite_difftg_agent_capsule (gpu_device_ids / gpu_timeout_s are optional native GPU evidence knobs; sidecar-routed GPU is unsupported evidence)
Call tg_mcp_capabilities first in PyPI wheels, sandboxes, and agent hosts so the client knows whether a standalone native tg binary is available.
Validation
For code changes, follow AGENTS.md and run:
uv run ruff check .
uv run ruff format --check --preview .
uv run mypy src/tensor_grep
uv run pytest -q
For fast agent-readiness dogfood before push, run:
python scripts/agent_readiness.py --output artifacts/agent_readiness.json
tg dogfood --output artifacts/dogfood_readiness.json
This gate checks public shell version resolution, public-windows-launcher-quoted-patterns, installed-public advertised search flag acceptance via public-search-advertised-flag-sweep, repo doctor sanity, context_consistency, agent-capsule, agent-capsule-mixed-language, agent-capsule-hardcases, deterministic rg edge parity, broad generated-root scan guardrails, AST smoke, MCP context-render smoke, docs claim hygiene, current v1.113.6 positioning, foreign launcher diagnostics, and the managed native-upgrade contract. tg dogfood wraps the same gate with a compact verdict and JSON report. It does not replace the full validation gate.
For hot-path or benchmark-relevant changes, run the matching benchmark before updating claims:
python benchmarks/run_benchmarks.py --output artifacts/bench_run_benchmarks.json
python benchmarks/check_regression.py --baseline auto --current artifacts/bench_run_benchmarks.json
python benchmarks/run_hot_query_benchmarks.py --output artifacts/bench_hot_query_benchmarks.json
python benchmarks/run_ast_benchmarks.py --output artifacts/bench_run_ast_benchmarks.json
python benchmarks/run_ast_workflow_benchmarks.py --output artifacts/bench_run_ast_workflow_benchmarks.json
python benchmarks/run_agent_success_harness.py --output artifacts/bench_agent_success_harness.json
python benchmarks/run_gpu_benchmarks.py --output artifacts/bench_run_gpu_benchmarks.json
GPU benchmark SKIP is valid infrastructure state when dependencies such as Torch, cuDF, CUDA, or Triton are unavailable. Do not convert a skip into a speed claim.
Common Mistakes
| Mistake | Correction |
|---|
Claiming tg is always faster than rg | Keep rg as the cold exact-text benchmark; position tg as agent-native code intelligence with a validated compatibility set. |
Searching with rg by habit inside this repo | Use tg search first, then rg for parity or fallback. |
| Running broad generated-root scans | Scope the path, use --glob / --type / --max-depth, or opt in with --allow-broad-generated-scan only when the generated-tree walk is intentional. |
| Saving tokens by changing raw search contracts | Add an opt-in bounded agent formatter/profile; leave --format rg, --json, and --ndjson stable. |
| Trusting stale native diagnostics | Check uv run tg doctor --json; stale in-tree binaries should be stale-skipped, not selected implicitly. Rebuild or pin TG_NATIVE_TG_BINARY to opt in. |
| Trusting invented validation commands | Check validation_plan[].detection; package-manager commands require package.json, Python commands require Python/test/project evidence, and absent evidence should mean no command. |
| Claiming GPU wins from device detection | Run the GPU benchmark and record the accepted artifact. |
| Updating docs from memory | Update docs only from repo evidence, CI evidence, or benchmark artifacts. |
| Adding a feature/tool without public-surface updates | Update README, docs/contracts, root and command help, native help, MCP docs/signatures when relevant, and this skill when operating practice changes. |
Exit Codes
| Code | Meaning |
|---|
| 0 | Matches found or command succeeded |
| 1 | No matches found |
| 2 | Error occurred |
