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Code Search Workflows

1. Finding Function Definitions​

# Python function definitions
ag "^def \w+" --python src/

# JavaScript/TypeScript functions (various styles)
ag "(function \w+|const \w+ = (\(|async)|\w+: function)" --js --ts src/

# Go functions
ag "^func " --go src/

2. Finding TODO/FIXME Comments​

# All TODO, FIXME, HACK, XXX markers
ag "(TODO|FIXME|HACK|XXX)" src/

# Only TODOs with a username
ag "TODO\s*\(@?\w+\)" src/

# TODOs by a specific developer
ag "TODO.*@alice" src/

3. Finding Deprecated or Removed APIs​

When upgrading a dependency, find all usages of the old API:

# Find all uses of an old React lifecycle method
ag "componentWillMount|componentWillReceiveProps" --ts --js src/

# Find uses of deprecated Python 2 print statement
ag "^print " --python src/

# Find jQuery usage (for vanilla JS migration)
ag "\\\$\(" --js src/

4. Security Audit — Secrets in Code​

# Find potential hardcoded credentials
ag -i "(password|api_key|secret|token)\s*=\s*[\"'][^\"']{8,}" src/

# Find AWS key patterns
ag "AKIA[0-9A-Z]{16}" src/

# Find private key headers
ag "BEGIN (RSA|EC|DSA|OPENSSH) PRIVATE KEY" .

5. Find and Replace Workflow​

# 1. Preview
ag "processUserData" src/

# 2. Get file list
ag -l "processUserData" src/

# 3. Replace
ag -l "processUserData" src/ | xargs sed -i 's/processUserData/handleUserPayload/g'

# 4. Verify
ag "processUserData" src/  # should return nothing

6. Counting Usage Across Codebase​

# How many times is each endpoint called?
ag -o "fetch\(['\"]([^'\"]+)" --js src/ | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr