Git Search

Git Search — Semantic Commit Search

Overview

git-search finds commits by meaning, not keywords. "auth login" matches commits about "JWT authentication" and "session management". Uses local embeddings (no network calls).

When to Use

• Finding commits related to a feature, bug, or area of code
• Investigating what changed and when (e.g., "when did we add rate limiting?")
• Understanding history before making changes to an area
• Locating prior art or similar changes for reference

Don't use for:

• Finding a specific commit by hash (use git show)
• Viewing recent commits (use git log)
• Blame/annotation (use git blame)

Quick Reference

# Search with JSON output (best for agents)
git-search search "database migration" --json --limit 10

# Text output (human-readable)
git-search search "authentication changes" --limit 5

# Check index status
git-search status

# Force full reindex (if index seems stale/corrupted)
git-search reindex

CLI Interface

git-search search <query> [--limit N] [--json]

Always use --json when processing results programmatically.

JSON Output Shape

[
  {
    "hash": "7a3f4c86d2f...",
    "message": "Add JWT authentication",
    "author_name": "Alice Smith",
    "author_email": "alice@example.com",
    "date": 1710115200,
    "distance": 0.15
  }
]

• distance: Vector distance (lower = more relevant, 0 = exact match)
• date: Unix timestamp
• hash: Full commit hash — use with git show <hash> for details

First Run

The first search auto-indexes all commits (may take a moment). Subsequent runs are incremental — only new commits are indexed.

Usage Patterns

Investigate an area before changing it

git-search search "error handling in payment processing" --json --limit 5

Then git show <hash> on the most relevant results to understand prior decisions.

Find related work across the repo

git-search search "rate limiting" --json --limit 10

Review results to see all areas where rate limiting was touched.

Understand how something evolved

git-search search "user authentication flow" --json --limit 15

Sort by date to see the evolution of a feature.

How Search Works

Each commit is embedded as {message}\n\nFiles: {file1}, {file2}, ... — search matches on both message content and file paths. Queries describing files or functionality both work.

Prerequisites

• Runtime: Bun (curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash)
• macOS: Homebrew SQLite (brew install sqlite) — Apple's bundled SQLite disables extension loading required by sqlite-vec
• Install: bun install -g @forjd/git-search
• Must be run inside a git repository
• First run downloads ~300MB embedding model (cached automatically)