search - Semantic search in current directory

Search the current directory's semantic index using natural language queries.

Usage

/semq:search <query>

Arguments:

• query - Natural language description of what to find (required)

What It Does

1. Finds .odino directory by traversing up from current directory
2. Runs odino query from the index location
3. Parses and formats results with scores and file paths
4. Optionally reads top results for context
5. Suggests using code-pointer to open relevant files

Examples

Find error handling (conceptual):

User: /semq:search error handling

Claude infers: "error handling exception management try catch validation"

Results:
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ File                            ┃ Score    ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ knowledge/Error Handling.md     │ 0.876    │
│ → "Error handling is the process of..."
│ → Shows: Key Concepts, Best Practices
│
│ middleware/errorHandler.js      │ 0.745    │
│ → Shows: Global error handler implementation
└─────────────────────────────────┴──────────┘

Claude reads top result and summarizes key concepts.

Find database code:

User: /semq:search DB connection code

Claude infers query with Python example:
"database connection pooling setup
import mysql.connector
pool = mysql.connector.pooling.MySQLConnectionPool(
    pool_name='mypool',
    pool_size=5,
    host='localhost'
)
connection = pool.get_connection()"

Results:
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ File                            ┃ Score    ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ src/db/connection.js            │ 0.924    │
│ → const pool = mysql.createPool({...})
│ → Shows: Connection pooling config with env vars
│ → Includes: Error handling and testing
└─────────────────────────────────┴──────────┘

Claude shows code snippet and explains pooling strategy.

Find algorithms:

User: /semq:search BFS algorithm Python

Claude infers query with code:
"breadth first search BFS graph traversal
def bfs(graph, start):
    visited = set()
    queue = [start]
    while queue:
        node = queue.pop(0)
        if node not in visited:
            visited.add(node)
            queue.extend(graph[node])"

Results:
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ File                            ┃ Score    ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ knowledge/Search Algorithms.md  │ 0.891    │
│ → Types: Uninformed (BFS, DFS) vs Informed (A*, Greedy)
│ → When to use each algorithm
│ → Includes mermaid diagram
└─────────────────────────────────┴──────────┘

Claude reads note and explains algorithm categories.

Implementation

Use the directory traversal helper to find the index, then run the search:

# Helper function to find .odino directory
find_odino_root() {
    local dir="$PWD"
    while [[ "$dir" != "/" ]]; do
        if [[ -d "$dir/.odino" ]]; then
            echo "$dir"
            return 0
        fi
        dir="$(dirname "$dir")"
    done
    return 1
}

# Get query from arguments
QUERY="$*"

if [[ -z "$QUERY" ]]; then
    echo "Error: Query required"
    echo "Usage: /semq:search <query>"
    exit 1
fi

# Find index and search
if ODINO_ROOT=$(find_odino_root); then
    echo "Searching in: $ODINO_ROOT"
    echo ""

    # Run search
    RESULTS=$(cd "$ODINO_ROOT" && odino query -q "$QUERY" 2>&1)

    if [[ $? -eq 0 ]]; then
        echo "$RESULTS"
        echo ""
        echo "💡 Tip: Use code-pointer to open files at specific lines"
    else
        echo "Search failed:"
        echo "$RESULTS"
    fi
else
    echo "No semantic search index found in current path."
    echo ""
    echo "To create an index, run:"
    echo "  /semq:index"
    echo ""
    echo "This will index the current directory for semantic search."
fi

Output Format

Results are shown with similarity scores and file paths:

Searching in: /home/user/project

Score: 0.89 | Path: src/auth/middleware.js
Score: 0.82 | Path: src/auth/jwt.js
Score: 0.75 | Path: src/middleware/passport.js

💡 Tip: Use code-pointer to open files at specific lines

Score Interpretation

• 0.85-1.0: Highly relevant, definitely check this
• 0.70-0.84: Likely relevant, worth reviewing
• 0.60-0.69: Possibly relevant, may contain related concepts
• <0.60: Weakly related, probably not useful

When to Use

Use /semq:search when:

• You know the directory is indexed
• You want to find code by describing what it does
• You're exploring an unfamiliar codebase
• Grep/glob aren't working (too literal)

Use /semq:here instead when:

• You're in a subdirectory and want automatic traversal
• You want to see where the index was found

Related Commands

• /semq:here <query> - Search with directory info
• /semq:status - Check if directory is indexed
• /semq:index - Create a new index

Tips

1. Be conceptual - Describe what the code does, not exact names
2. Use natural language - "authentication logic" not "auth"
3. Check top 3-5 results - Sometimes #3 is the best match
4. Combine with grep - Use semantic search to find area, grep for specifics
5. Read files - Use Read tool on top results for context