Serena Conventions

Overview

Serena provides semantic code navigation via LSP — symbol lookup, type info, references, and structural edits. Context-mode provides bulk reading and sandbox execution. Use both: Serena for precision, context-mode for reconnaissance and large outputs.

Decision Tree

Need to understand code structure?
├─ Yes → Serena (find_symbol, get_symbols_overview)
│        Need full file contents for conventions/style?
│        └─ Yes → context-mode (ctx_batch_execute with cat)
├─ No → Need to insert/replace a specific method?
│        ├─ Yes → Serena (insert_after_symbol, replace_symbol_body)
│        └─ No → Need to search for a pattern across files?
│                 ├─ Yes → Serena (serena_search_for_pattern)
│                 └─ No → context-mode or bash as appropriate