Output formats

github-code-search can produce two output formats — Markdown (default) and JSON — controlled by --format. Both formats are available in interactive and non-interactive modes.

--format markdown (default)

Produces a human-readable Markdown document with clickable GitHub links.

github-code-search "useFeatureFlag" --org fulll --format markdown --no-interactive

3 repos · 4 files selected

- **fulll/auth-service** (2 matches)
  - [ ] [src/middlewares/featureFlags.ts:2:19](...)
  - [ ] [tests/unit/featureFlags.test.ts:1:8](...)
- **fulll/billing-api** (1 match)
  - [ ] [src/flags.ts:3:14](...)
- **fulll/frontend-app** (1 match)
  - [ ] [src/hooks/useFeatureFlag.ts:1:1](...)

replay command

github-code-search "useFeatureFlag" --org fulll --no-interactive

Each extract link points directly to the matching line on GitHub.

--format json

Produces a machine-readable JSON payload — useful for scripting, dashboards, or feeding into another tool.

github-code-search "useFeatureFlag" --org fulll --format json --no-interactive

{
  "query": "useFeatureFlag",
  "org": "fulll",
  "selection": { "repos": 1, "matches": 1 },
  "results": [
    {
      "repo": "fulll/auth-service",
      "matches": [
        {
          "path": "src/middlewares/featureFlags.ts",
          "url": "https://github.com/fulll/auth-service/blob/main/src/middlewares/featureFlags.ts#L2",
          "line": 2,
          "col": 19
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "replayCommand": "# Replay:\ngithub-code-search \"useFeatureFlag\" --org fulll --format json --no-interactive"
}

TIP

--format json works in interactive mode too — pressing Enter outputs the JSON payload.

--output-type

The --output-type flag controls how much detail is included in the output, regardless of format:

Value	Description
repo-and-matches	(default) — includes each matching file and its code extract
repo-only	Lists only the repository names, without individual extracts

Example — repo-only Markdown

github-code-search "useFeatureFlag" --org fulll \
  --output-type repo-only --no-interactive

fulll/auth-service
fulll/billing-api
fulll/frontend-app

replay command

github-code-search "useFeatureFlag" --org fulll --no-interactive --output-type repo-only

Example — repo-only JSON

github-code-search "useFeatureFlag" --org fulll \
  --format json --output-type repo-only --no-interactive

{
  "query": "useFeatureFlag",
  "org": "fulll",
  "selection": { "repos": 3, "matches": 5 },
  "results": [
    { "repo": "fulll/auth-service" },
    { "repo": "fulll/billing-api" },
    { "repo": "fulll/frontend-app" }
  ],
  "replayCommand": "# Replay:\ngithub-code-search \"useFeatureFlag\" --org fulll --format json --no-interactive --output-type repo-only"
}

repo-only is ideal for CI steps that only need a list of affected repositories — for example, to trigger downstream pipelines.

Summary line

The header and output summary distinguish two levels of granularity:

Label	Meaning
files	Number of unique file paths across all repos (src/config.ts in 3 repos counts as 1 file)
matches	Total (repo, file) pairs — the usual per-repo extract count

49 repos · 112 files · 234 matches

The matches segment is hidden when it equals files (i.e. every file appears in exactly one repo). It appears automatically as soon as a file path is shared across multiple repos.

When a partial selection is active:

49 repos (47 selected) · 112 files (109 selected) · 234 matches (231 selected)