Search syntax

github-code-search automatically injects an org:<org> qualifier from --org and otherwise passes the rest of your query unchanged to the GitHub Code Search API. Any syntax that works in the GitHub search bar also works here.

Basic query

github-code-search "useFeatureFlag" --org fulll

Searches for the literal string useFeatureFlag across all repositories in the fulll organisation.

Qualifiers

GitHub code search supports a set of qualifiers you can combine with your keyword:

Qualifier	Description	Example
language:<lang>	Filter by programming language	useFeatureFlag language:TypeScript
path:<pattern>	Restrict to files whose path matches the glob or substring	config path:src/config
filename:<name>	Match files by name (supports wildcards)	SECRET filename:.env
extension:<ext>	Match files by extension	connect extension:ts
repo:<owner>/<repo>	Restrict to a single repository (less useful here — use --org)	connect repo:fulll/billing-api
NOT <term>	Exclude a keyword	connect NOT deprecated
"exact phrase"	Exact multi-word match	"feature flag"

TIP

Qualifiers can be combined freely:
"feature flag" language:TypeScript path:src/

Practical examples

Find all usages of a function

github-code-search "useFeatureFlag" --org fulll

Restrict to TypeScript files

github-code-search "useFeatureFlag language:TypeScript" --org fulll

Search in a specific directory

github-code-search "SENTRY_DSN path:config" --org fulll

Search for a file by name

github-code-search "filename:docker-compose.yml" --org fulll

Exclude test files

github-code-search "useFeatureFlag NOT filename:test NOT filename:spec" --org fulll

Restrict to specific repositories

Although --org already limits the search to your organisation, you can further narrow results to one or more specific repositories using repo: qualifiers in the query string:

github-code-search "useFeatureFlag repo:fulll/billing-api repo:fulll/auth-service" --org fulll

--org is still required for the API call even when repo: qualifiers are present. The org:<org> qualifier is injected automatically alongside your query.

Find hardcoded secrets (audit use case)

github-code-search "password= language:TypeScript NOT filename:test" --org fulll

Regex queries

github-code-search supports regex syntax using the /pattern/flags notation, just like the GitHub web UI.

Because the GitHub Code Search API does not natively support regex, the CLI automatically extracts a representative literal term from the regex to send to the API, then filters the returned results locally with the full pattern. In most cases this is fully transparent, including patterns that contain literal " characters, which the CLI escapes automatically using GitHub's own quote-escaping syntax (see Searching for a literal quote character below).

# Imports using the axios module (any quote style)
github-code-search "/from.*['\"\`]axios/" --org fulll

# Axios dependency in package.json (any semver prefix) — the double quotes in
# the pattern are preserved and escaped automatically for the GitHub API
github-code-search '/"axios": "[~^]?[0-9]"/ filename:package.json' --org fulll

# Old library require() calls
github-code-search "/require\\(['\"](old-lib)['\"]\\)/" --org fulll

# Any of TODO, FIXME or HACK comments
github-code-search "/TODO|FIXME|HACK/" --org fulll

Top-level alternation

When the regex contains a top-level | (e.g. TODO|FIXME|HACK), the CLI sends an A OR B OR C query to the GitHub API so that all branches are covered — no results are missed.

When auto-extraction is not precise enough

If the extracted term is very short (fewer than 3 characters), the CLI will exit with a warning and ask you to provide a manual hint:

⚠  Regex mode — No meaningful search term could be extracted from the regex pattern. Use --regex-hint <term> to specify the term to send to the GitHub API.

This happens when the pattern has no literal characters at all, for example a pure version-number match:

github-code-search '/[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+/' --org fulll

Use --regex-hint to override the API search term while still applying the full regex filter locally:

github-code-search '/[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+/ filename:package.json' \
  --org fulll \
  --regex-hint version

Quoting a single word has no filtering effect

Wrapping a single word in double quotes (e.g. --regex-hint '"axios"') does not narrow the GitHub search — GitHub treats a one-word quoted phrase exactly like the bare word. Quotes only matter for multi-word phrases ("feature flag") or when you need to search for the literal " character itself, see below.

API coverage

The GitHub Code Search API returns at most 1,000 results per query. The regex filter is applied to those results; results beyond the API cap can never be seen. Refine the query with qualifiers (language:, path:, filename:) to keep the result set small.

Searching for a literal quote character

GitHub's query syntax treats " as a phrase delimiter, not a literal character. To search for an actual quote character (for example to match a package.json dependency key/value prefix like "react": "), escape it for both your shell and GitHub:

github-code-search '"\"react\": \""' --org myorg

• The outer single quotes protect the whole argument from your shell.
• The \" sequences are GitHub's own escape syntax for a literal quote character inside an exact phrase.

If you instead pass raw, unescaped quotes, two things can happen:

• An even number of quotes (e.g. "react": ) is valid GitHub syntax, but GitHub silently strips the quotes and treats the query as separate terms, so you get broader results than expected, not an error.
• An odd number of quotes (e.g. "react": ") is rejected by GitHub with an opaque 422 ERROR_TYPE_QUERY_PARSING_FATAL error. github-code-search detects this locally and fails fast with an actionable message before ever calling the API:

Error: Unbalanced double quotes in query: "\"react\": \"". GitHub rejects this with a query
parsing error. To search for a literal quote character, escape it for both your shell and
GitHub, e.g.: github-code-search '"\"react\": \""' --org myorg

Shell escaping consumes backslashes too

Typing "\"react\": \"" directly (double-quoted at the shell level) does not work: your shell resolves \" to a literal " before the CLI ever sees it, so the program receives the same unbalanced "react": " string as if you had typed no backslashes at all. Always wrap the whole argument in single quotes so the backslashes reach GitHub unchanged, as in the example above.

API limits

The GitHub Code Search API returns at most 1,000 results per query. If your query returns more, refine it with qualifiers (especially language: or path:) to stay below the limit.

See the GitHub API limits reference for details on rate limits and pagination.

What's next?

Once you have results, use the interactive mode to browse and select them, or the non-interactive mode to pipe them into a script.