Search through code files in the project directory for specific terms.
Usage
btw_tool_files_code_search(
term,
limit = 100,
case_sensitive = TRUE,
use_regex = FALSE,
show_lines = FALSE,
`_intent` = ""
)Arguments
- term
The term to search for in the code files.
- limit
Maximum number of matching lines to return (between 1 and 1000, default 100).
- case_sensitive
Whether the search should be case-sensitive (default is
FALSE).- use_regex
Whether to interpret the search term as a regular expression (default is
FALSE).- show_lines
Whether to show the matching lines in the results. Defaults to
FALSE, which means only the file names and count of matching lines are returned.- _intent
An optional string describing the intent of the tool use. When the tool is used by an LLM, the model will use this argument to explain why it called the tool.
Value
Returns a tool result with a data frame of search results, with
columns for filename, size, last_modified, content and line.
Details
Options
You can configure which file extensions are included and which paths are excluded from code search by using two options:
btw.files_code_search.extensions: A character vector of file extensions to search in (default includes R, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Markdown, SCSS, and CSS files).btw.files_code_search.exclusions: A character vector of gitignore-style patterns to exclude paths and directories from the search. The default value includes a set of common version control, IDE, and cache folders.
Alternatively, you can also set these options in your btw.md file under the
options section, like this:
---
client:
provider: anthropic
tools: [files_code_search]
options:
files_code_search:
extensions: ["R", "Rmd", "py", "qmd"]
exclusions: ["DEFAULT", ".quarto/"]
---Include "DEFAULT" in the exclusions option to use btw's default
exclusions, which cover common directories like .git/, .vscode/.
If the gert package is installed and the project is a Git repository,
the tool will also respect the .gitignore file and exclude any ignored
paths, regardless of the btw.files_code_search.exclusions option.
See also
Other Tools:
btw_tool_docs_package_news(),
btw_tool_env_describe_data_frame(),
btw_tool_env_describe_environment(),
btw_tool_files_list_files(),
btw_tool_files_read_text_file(),
btw_tool_files_write_text_file(),
btw_tool_ide_read_current_editor(),
btw_tool_package_docs,
btw_tool_search_packages(),
btw_tool_session_package_info(),
btw_tool_session_platform_info(),
btw_tool_web_read_url(),
btw_tools()
Examples
withr::with_tempdir({
writeLines(state.name[1:25], "state_names_1.md")
writeLines(state.name[26:50], "state_names_2.md")
tools <- btw_tools("files_code_search")
tools$btw_tool_files_code_search(
term = "kentucky",
case_sensitive = FALSE,
show_lines = TRUE
)
})
#> ℹ Creating DuckDB database for code search of .
#> ✔ Creating DuckDB database for code search of . [859ms]
#>
#> <btw::BtwToolResult>
#> @ value :'data.frame': 1 obs. of 5 variables:
#> .. $ filename : chr "state_names_1.md"
#> .. $ size : 'fs_bytes' num 219
#> .. $ last_modified: POSIXct, format: "2025-08-29 20:51:01"
#> .. $ content : chr "Kentucky"
#> .. $ line : num 17
#> @ error : NULL
#> @ extra :List of 1
#> .. $ display:List of 1
#> .. ..$ markdown: chr "| filename | size | last_modified | content | line |\n|----------|------|---------------|---------|------|\n| s"| __truncated__
#> @ request: NULL