sifs-search - SKILL.md Agent Skill

name: sifs-search description: Use this skill when you need to find code in a local checkout or Git source by behavior, intent, symbol, file path, related implementation, or indexed chunk context. Use it before broad file reads or grep-style sweeps for exploratory codebase questions, architecture tracing, call-site discovery, and "where/how is X implemented?" tasks. Do not use it for general web search or non-code files unless the user asks to search a source tree. license: MIT compatibility: Requires the local `sifs` binary on PATH. Works in macOS/Linux agent runtimes with shell access; MCP tools are optional. metadata: version: "0.1.0" variant: "canonical"

Use SIFS from the shell when you need codebase context. The CLI is the reliable path; MCP tools are optional and should only be used when they are visible in the current agent session.

When to Use

Use for local code search, symbol discovery, behavior tracing, related-code lookup, and indexed file/chunk inspection.
Use before reading many files by hand when the task starts with "where is...", "how is...", "find the implementation...", or "what code handles...".
Do not use for general web research, package documentation lookup, or non-code document search unless the user explicitly points SIFS at a source tree.

Start by discovering the local contract:

sifs agent-context --json

Search by intent, behavior, symbol, or exact text:

sifs search "authentication flow" --source <project>
sifs search "save_pretrained" --source <project> --mode bm25
sifs search "save model to disk" --source <project> --limit 10

Inspect indexed files and chunks before reading broad files:

sifs list-files --source <project> --limit 200 --json
sifs list-files --source <project> --prefix src/auth/ --json
sifs symbol SessionToken --source <project> --json
sifs outline src/auth.rs --source <project> --symbols-limit 200 --chunks-limit 100 --json
sifs get src/auth.rs 42 --source <project>
sifs find-related src/auth.rs 42 --source <project>

Use --source <project> when the agent may not be running from the target checkout. Use --filter-path <repo-relative-path> for path narrowing and --limit for bounded results.

If MCP tools named search, symbol, outline, pack, get_chunk, or list_files are visible, they may be used for the same workflow. If they are missing, configured-but-invisible, or failing, fall back to the CLI immediately.

Bundled support files:

references/commands.md contains command recipes.
references/mcp.md explains MCP fallback rules.
references/troubleshooting.md covers setup and stale-instruction checks.
scripts/check-setup.sh verifies that sifs is on PATH and can print the agent contract.