vgrep

When to use

• Locating code by intent: "where do we handle auth", "find the retry/backoff logic", "code similar to X".
• Onboarding into an unfamiliar repository where you don't know the exact identifiers.
• Cross-referencing a concept that appears under many different names.

For exact strings, regex, or symbol lookups, prefer rg / grep.

Steps

1. vgrep status — confirm an index exists. If it errors with "not initialized", run vgrep init --force.
2. vgrep search "<intent>" -k 5 — returns the top-k semantic chunks as path:start-end with a similarity score and a code preview.
3. cat <path> (or head -n N <path> / tail -n +N <path>) to expand context around a hit.
4. Iterate: refine the query phrase based on what hits returned. Multiple short, distinct queries beat one long compound query.

Output format