ag Cheatsheet

Syntax

ag [OPTIONS] PATTERN [PATH]

Pattern is PCRE regex by default. PATH defaults to ..

Core Flags

Flag	Purpose
-i	Case insensitive
-s	Force case sensitive
-S	Smart case
-w	Whole word match
-v	Invert match
-Q	Fixed/literal string (no regex)
-f FILE	Read patterns from file

Scope Control

Flag	Purpose
--hidden	Include hidden dotfiles
-u	Skip ignore files
-uu	Skip ignore files + hidden
--ignore-dir=DIR	Exclude a directory
--ignore=GLOB	Exclude file pattern
-G REGEX	Only files matching path regex
--depth N	Limit traversal depth

File Types (select)

Flag	Files searched
--python	.py, .pyw
--js	.js, .jsx
--ts	.ts, .tsx
--go	.go
--rust	.rs
--yaml	.yaml, .yml
--sql	.sql

Run ag --list-file-types for the full list.

Output Flags

Flag	Purpose
-l	Only filenames
-c	Count per file
-o	Only matching text
-n	Line numbers (default)
--column	Show column number
--noheading	Flat file:line:col:text format
-q	Quiet (exit code only)
-A N	N lines after
-B N	N lines before
-C N	N lines each side
-m N	Stop after N matches
--color / --nocolor	Force color on/off

Production Pipelines

# Find and replace across project
ag -l "old_name" src/ | xargs sed -i 's/old_name/new_name/g'

# Top 10 IPs from log
ag -o "([0-9]{1,3}\.){3}[0-9]{1,3}" access.log \
  | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -10

# Extract TODO authors
ag -o "TODO\(([^)]+)\)" src/ | sort | uniq -c

# Audit for hardcoded secrets
ag -i "(password|api_key|secret)\s*=" --python --js src/

# Open matches interactively with fzf
ag --noheading "TODO" | fzf | awk -F: '{print $1, $2}' | xargs -r sh -c 'vim +$2 $1'