Search Query Language Reference

This page provides a visual breakdown of the Search Query Language with some examples to get you started.

It is complementary to our Search Query Syntax and illustrates syntax using railroad diagrams instead of tables.

How to read railroad diagrams?

Follow the lines in these railroad diagrams to see how pieces of syntax combine. When a line splits, it means there are multiple options available. When it is possible to repeat a previous syntax, the split line will loop back on itself like this:

Basic query

At a basic level, a query consists of search patterns and parameters. Typical queries contain one or more space-separated search patterns that describe what to search, and parameters refine searches by filtering results or changing search behavior.

For example,

• repo:github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph file:schema.graphql The result

Expression

Build query expressions by combining basic queries and operators like AND or OR. Group expressions with parentheses to build more complex expressions. If there are no balanced parentheses, AND operators bind tighter, so foo or bar and baz means foo or (bar and baz). You may also use lowercase and or or.

For example,

• repo:github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph rtr AND newRouter

Search pattern

A pattern to search. By default, the pattern is searched literally. The kind of search may be toggled to change how a pattern matches:

Perform a regular expression search. We support RE2 syntax. Quoting a pattern will perform a literal search.

For example,

• foo.*bar.*baz
• "foo bar"

Parameter

Search parameters allow you to filter search results or modify search behavior.

Repo

Search repositories that match the regular expression. A - before repo excludes the repository. By default, the repository will be searched at the HEAD commit of the default branch. You can optionally change the revision.

For example,

• repo:gorilla/mux testroute
• -repo:gorilla/mux testroute

Revision

Search a repository at a given revision, for example, a branch name, commit hash, or Git tag.

For example,

• repo:^github\.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph$@75ba004 get_embeddings
• repo:^github\.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph$ rev:v5.0.0 get_embeddings

You can search multiple revisions by separating the revisions with :. Specify HEAD for the default branch.

For example,

• repo:^github\.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph$ rev:v4.5.0:v5.0.0 disableNonCriticalTelemetry
• repo:^github\.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph$@v4.5.0:v5.0.0 disableNonCriticalTelemetry

Revision at time

Search a repository at a given time. Optionally, a second parameter can be used to specify a revision which will be used as the starting point of the search.

For example,

• repo:^github\.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph$ rev:at.time(2 years ago) handbook
• repo:^github\.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph$ rev:at.time(2021-01-30, v5.0.0) popular

File

Search files whose full path matches the regular expression. A - before file excludes the file from being searched.

For example,

• file:\.js$ httptest
• file:\.js$ -file:test http

Language

Only search files in the specified programming language, like typescript or python.

For example,

• lang:typescript encoding

Content-based language detection (Beta)

Language filters work by checking the file name and extension. They can behave unexpectedly when a language's extension is ambiguous: for example lang:Objective-C may also match Matlab files, since both languages use the .m extension.

If this is an issue, you can enable the feature flag search-content-based-lang-detection. When enabled, Sourcegraph more accurately detects a file's language by checking the file contents in addition to the name and extension.

Content

Set the search pattern to search using a dedicated parameter. Useful, for example, when searching literally for a string like repo:my-repo that may conflict with the syntax of parameters in this Sourcegraph language.

For example,

• repo:sourcegraph content:"repo:sourcegraph"

Select

Selects the specified result type from the set of search results. If a query produces results that aren't of the selected type, the results will be converted to the selected type.

For example, the query file:package.json lodash will return content matches for lodash in package.json files. If select:repo is added, the containing repository will be selected and the repositories that contain package.json files that contain the term lodash will be returned. All selected results are deduplicated, so if there are multiple content matches in a repository, select:repo will still only return unique results.

A query like type:commit example select:symbol will return no results because commits have no associated symbol and cannot be converted to that type.

For example,

• fmt.Errorf select:repo
• zoektSearch select:file

Symbol kind

Select a specific kind of symbol. For example type:symbol select:symbol.function zoektSearch will only return functions that contain the literal zoektSearch.

For example,

• type:symbol zoektSearch select:symbol.function

Modified lines

When searching commit diffs, select only diffs where the pattern matches on added or removed lines. For example, search for recent commits that removed TODOs in your code.

For example,

• repo:^github\.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph$ type:diff TODO select:commit.diff.removed

File kind

Select only directory paths of file results with select:file.directory. This is useful for discovering the directory paths that specify a package.json file, for example.

select:file.path returns the full path for the file and is equivalent to select:file. It exists as a fully-qualified alternative.

For example,

• file:package\.json select:file.directory

File owners

Select owners associated with the results of a query.

For example, lang:TypeScript select:file.owners displays owners of all TypeScript files.

Type

Set whether the search pattern should perform a search of a certain type. Notable search types are symbol, commit, and diff.

For example,

• type:symbol path 
• type:commit author:nick

Case

Set whether the search pattern should be treated case-sensitively. This is synonymous with the toggle button.

For example,

• OPEN_FILE case:yes

Fork

Set to yes if repository forks should be included or only if only forks should be searched. Repository forks are excluded by default.

For example,

• fork:yes repo:sourcegraph

Archived

Set to yes if archived repositories should be included or only if only archives should be searched. Archived repositories are excluded by default.

For example,

• archived:only repo:sourcegraph

Count

Retrieve N results. By default, Sourcegraph stops searching early and returns if it finds a full page of results. This is desirable for most interactive searches. To wait for all results, use count:all.

For example,

• count:1000 function
• count:all err

Timeout

Set a search timeout. The time value is a string like 10s or 100ms, which is parsed by the Go time package's ParseDuration. By default, the timeout is set to 10 seconds, and the search will optimize for returning results as soon as possible. The timeout value cannot be set to longer than 1 minute.

For example,

• timeout:15s count:10000 func sets a longer timeout for a search that contains a lot of results.

Sourcegraph admins can increase the maximum timeout of 1 minute through site configuration.

Visibility

Filter results to only public or private repositories. The default is to include both private and public repositories.

For example,

• type:repo visibility:public

Pattern type

Set whether the pattern should run a keyword search or regular expression search. This parameter is available as a command-line and accessibility option and is synonymous with the visual search pattern toggles.

Built-in repo predicate

Repo has meta

Tagging repositories with key-value pairs is GA as of 5.1.0, but can be disabled by creating the feature flag repository-metadata and setting it to false. Add metadata by following the instructions.

Search only inside repositories that are associated with the provided key-value pair, key, or tag. Keys and value patterns can be literal strings which match the key and value exactly, or they can be slash-delimited regex patterns.

For example,

• repo:has.meta(team:sourcegraph)
• repo:has.meta(team:/[source]{5}graph/)
• repo:has.meta(language)

Repo has file and content

Search only inside repositories that contain a file matching the path: with content: filters.

For example,

• repo:has.file(path:CHANGELOG content:fix)

Repo has path

Search only inside repositories that contain a file path matching the regular expression.

For example,

• repo:has.path(README)

Repo has content

Search only inside repositories that contain file content matching the regular expression.

For example,

• repo:github\.com/sourcegraph/.*$ repo:has.content(TODO)

Repo has topic

Search only inside repositories that have the given GitHub/GitLab topic.

For example,

• repo:has.topic(code-search)

Repo has commit after

Search only inside repositories that contain a commit after some specified time. See git date formats for accepted formats. Use this to filter out stale repositories that don’t contain commits past the specified time frame. This parameter is experimental.

For example,

• repo:has.commit.after(1 month ago)

Repo has description

Search only inside repositories having a description matching the given regular expression.

For example,

• repo:has.description(go package)

Built-in file predicate

File has content

Search only inside files that contain content matching the provided regexp pattern.

For example,

• file:has.content(test)

File has owner

Search only inside files that have an owner associated matching given string.

File has contributor

Search only inside files that have a contributor whose name or email matches the provided regex pattern.

Regular expression

A string that is interpreted as a RE2 regular expression.

String

An unquoted string is any contiguous sequence of characters not containing whitespace.

Quoted string

Any string, including whitespace, may be quoted with single ' or double " quotes. Quotes can be escaped with \. Literal \ characters will need to be escaped, for example, \\.

Commit parameter

Set parameters that apply only to commit and diff searches.

Author

Include commits or diffs that are authored by the user.

Before

Include results having a commit date before the specified time frame. Times are interpreted as UTC by default. Many forms are accepted for the argument, such as:

• november 1 2019
• 1 november 2019
• 2019.11.1
• 11/1/2019
• 01.11.2019
• Thu, 07 Apr 2005 22:13:13 +0200
• 2005-04-07
• 2005-04-07T22:13:13
• 2005-04-07T22:13:13+07:00
• yesterday
• 5 days ago
• 20 minutes ago
• 2 weeks ago
• 3:00
• 3pm
• 1632782809
• 1632782809 -0600

For example,

• before:"last thursday"
• before:"november 1 2019"

After

Include results having a commit date after the specified time frame. Times are interpreted as UTC by default. Many forms are accepted for the argument, such as:

• november 1 2019
• 1 november 2019
• 2019.11.1
• 11/1/2019
• 01.11.2019
• Thu, 07 Apr 2005 22:13:13 +0200
• 2005-04-07
• 2005-04-07T22:13:13
• 2005-04-07T22:13:13+07:00
• yesterday
• 5 days ago
• 20 minutes ago
• 2 weeks ago
• 3:00
• 3pm
• 1632782809
• 1632782809 -0600

For example,

• after:"6 weeks ago"
• after:"november 1 2019"

Message

Include results having a commit message containing the string.

For example,

• type:commit message:"testing"

Whitespace