Search examples
Below are examples that search repositories on Sourcegraph.com, our open source code search solution for GitHub and GitLab. You can copy and adapt the following search queries for use on your company’s private instance.
See search query syntax reference.
Find private keys and GitHub access tokens checked in to code
(-----BEGIN [A-Z ]*PRIVATE KEY------)|(("gh|'gh)[pousr]_[A-Za-z0-9_]{16,}) patternType:regexp case:yes
Recent security-related changes on all branches
type:diff repo:@*refs/heads/ after:"5 days ago" \b(auth[^o][^r]|security\b|cve|password|secure|unsafe|perms|permissions)
Admitted hacks and TODOs in app code
-file:\.(json|md|txt)$ hack|todo|kludge|fixme
Removal of TODOs in the repository commit log
repo:^github\.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph$ type:diff select:commit.diff.removed TODO
type:diff after:"1 week ago" \.subscribe\( lang:typescript
Find multiple terms in the same file, like testing of HTTP components
repo:github\.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph$ (test AND http AND NewRequest) lang:go
Recent quality related changes on all branches (customize for your linters)
repo:@*refs/heads/:^master type:diff after:"1 week ago" (eslint-disable)
file:package.json type:diff after:"1 week ago"
Files that are Apache licensed
licensed to the apache software foundation select:file
Only repositories with recent dependency changes
file:package.json type:diff after:"1 week ago" select:repo
Search changes in a files that contain a keyword
repo:^github\.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph$ type:diff file:contains.content("golang\.org/x/sync/errgroup") .Go
When to use regex search mode
Sourcegraph's default literal search mode is line-based and will not match across lines, so regex can be useful when you wish to do so:
Matching multiple text strings in a file
repo:^github\.com/Parsely/pykafka$ Not leader for partition
Regex searches are also useful when searching boundaries that are not delimited by code structures:
Finding css classes with word boundary regex
repo:^github\.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph$ \bbtn-secondary\b
When to use structural search mode
Use structural search when you want to match code boundaries such as () or {}:
Finding try catch statements with varying content
repo:^github\.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph$
try { :[matched_statements] } catch { :[matched_catch] }