Zift

zift Skill

zift is a high-performance, local-first code search tool that combines semantic (vector) and lexical (FTS5) search.

Core Search Modes

1. Semantic / Hybrid (Default)

Uses natural language to find code by "meaning" or "intent".

zift "how do I handle database connections" .

Best for: High-level architectural questions, finding unfamiliar logic.

2. Exact Match (-e, --exact)

Performs a literal, byte-perfect substring search.

zift -e "SearchResult { file_path" .

Best for: Finding specific variable names, error strings, or boilerplate.

3. Regex Search (-r, --regex)

Uses Rust-powered regular expressions for pattern matching.

zift -r "pub (async )?fn" .

Best for: Finding all instances of a pattern (e.g., all public functions).

Workflow

Indexing

Before searching, you must index the project. zift uses incremental indexing and will auto-refresh stale files on query, but a full initial index is recommended:

zift add .

Filtering

Use the -l or --local flag to restrict results to the current working directory (useful in monorepos).

zift "auth logic" . --local

Architecture & Performance

• Local-first: All embeddings and indices stay on your machine (~/.cache/zift).
• GPU Accelerated: Uses Metal/GPU for embedding generation via llama-cpp-2.
• Hybrid RRF: Fuses semantic and lexical results using Reciprocal Rank Fusion (k=60) with Power-Law scaling (γ=2.5) for intuitive percentages.
• Speed: Exact and Regex searches skip the embedding phase and are near-instant (<50ms).

Troubleshooting

• Stale Index: If results seem old, run zift add . again or zift forget . to reset.
• Model Issues: zift defaults to nomic-embed-text-v1.5. Ensure the model is downloaded to the cache directory.