| name | search-ladder |
| description | Offload code search to deterministic tools instead of hand-grepping or reading whole files (P1). Climb the ladder lexical → structural → semantic, stopping at the first rung that answers. Use whenever locating symbols, call sites, definitions, or concepts in a repo. |
Search Ladder Skill (P1)
Purpose
Never hand-grep, never read a whole file to "look around." Each search is one offloaded call whose result is file:line + ~2 lines (P0/P8). Climb only as far as needed.
The ladder (stop at first rung that answers)
- Lexical —
ripgrep (default). Exact strings, identifiers, regex.
rg -n "createSession" --type ts | head -50
rg -n "TODO|FIXME" -g '!*.test.*' | head -50
- Structural — Probe (when code structure matters more than exact text).
probe search "auth middleware" ./src
- Semantic —
mgrep — concept queries only, last resort (cost + noise).
mgrep "where is rate limiting enforced" src/
Rules
- Pipe high-frequency searches to
| head — bounded output (P0).
- Prefer structural search over regex when text is too brittle.
- Drop to semantic only when you cannot name the token — never as rung 1.
- Optional tools may be absent; fall back down the ladder (
probe missing → rg).
Need concrete recipes for a rung (regex flags, Probe queries, mgrep phrasing)? Read references/ladder.md.
