Search Tools

Tools for searching files and content across your codebase.

Search tools let Claude navigate large codebases efficiently using pattern matching and content search.

GlobTool

Finds files matching a glob pattern. Returns paths sorted by modification time — most recently modified first.

Usage pattern:

> Find all React component files
> List every test file in the project
> Show me all configuration files

Common patterns:

Pattern	Matches
**/*.ts	All TypeScript files
src/**/*.test.ts	Test files under src/
**/*.{json,yaml,yml}	JSON and YAML files
**/index.{ts,tsx,js}	Index files
**/.env*	Environment files

GrepTool

Searches file contents using regular expressions, powered by ripgrep. Returns file paths and line numbers for all matches, sorted by modification time.

Usage pattern:

> Find all places where we call the auth API
> Search for TODO comments in the codebase
> Where is the `parseToken` function defined?
> Find all usages of the deprecated `fetch` wrapper

Real-world examples:

> Find all console.log statements in src/
> Where is DATABASE_URL used?
> Search for any hardcoded API keys

Regex support:

GrepTool supports full regex syntax:

log.*Error          # Lines containing "log" followed by "Error"
function\s+\w+      # Function declarations
import.*from\s+'@   # Imports from scoped packages

GrepTool searches file contents. Use GlobTool to find files by name pattern, and GrepTool to find files by content.

ToolSearchTool

Deferred tool discovery — searches for available tools (including MCP tools) that match a description. Used internally when Claude needs a capability it doesn’t have loaded yet.

This tool runs automatically in the background; you don’t invoke it directly.

For large codebases, Claude often combines GlobTool (to find relevant files) and GrepTool (to find specific patterns within them) in sequence to efficiently locate code without reading every file.