Semantic search over the indexed codebase. Use this INSTEAD of Grep when the query is conceptual (e.g. 'where do we validate input', 'how is caching implemented', 'authentication flow'). Returns ranked code fragments with file path, line range, snippet, score and a one-line why excerpt. For exact-string lookup, Grep is still better.

Recent git commits with structured fields (sha, ISO date, author, paths, summary). Use INSTEAD of git log shell calls — the output is already parsed and filterable by since and paths. Defaults to the last 7 days when since is omitted.

Structured snapshot of the project or a module: name, purpose (README first paragraph), stack (Python/Node/Rust/Go/Java), entry_points, key_modules, stats (files, loc, languages). Useful at session start for orientation; prefer it over reading README/CLAUDE.md when you need machine-readable fields.

Locate the definition site of a named symbol (function, class, method, type, struct, enum, interface, record). Use this INSTEAD of shelling out to grep when the user asks "where is X defined?" — returns SymbolDef[] with path, line range, kind, and language. Faster and more accurate than grepping for def X / class X / function X / etc., because it consults a tree-sitter-indexed symbol table built at reindex time, not the raw text.

List every textual occurrence of a named symbol in the indexed corpus. Use INSTEAD of grep -n "X" when the user asks "who calls X?" or "where is X used?". Returns SymbolRef[] with path, line, snippet. Word-boundary matched, so 'log' won't return 'logger' or 'log_format'.

Repo-relative directory tree, gitignore-aware. Use INSTEAD of shelling out to Bash: ls -R or Bash: tree when the user asks for the project structure or for orientation in an unfamiliar module. Returns a hierarchical FileTreeNode with files (with byte sizes) and directories (with recursive children, capped at max_depth). Honors .gitignore; skips hidden files unless include_hidden=true.

AST-aligned chunks affected by the diff at ref. Use INSTEAD of Bash: git show <sha> when the user asks "what does this commit do?" or "what changed in HEAD~3?". The chunker resolves which whole functions / classes were touched, not just raw line additions — much easier for an LLM to reason about. Returns DiffChunk[] with path, lines, snippet, kind, and change ("added"|"modified"|"deleted").

Trigger a background reindex without restarting the server. Use after large external changes (git checkout, cache import, file restore). By default blocks until the new index is active (60s timeout). Pass wait=false for fire-and-forget, or timeout to extend the wait window for large repos that need more than 60s to reindex.