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Search & replace

Yara Code has two searches built from the same parts, so they look and behave alike: project search in the sidebar, and find in file over the editor.

Cmd+Shift+F / Ctrl+Shift+F. Live, case-insensitive by default, grouped by file; click or press Enter on a hit to jump to it, and the file opens with every match highlighted.

Project search in the terminal frontend

Project search in the window frontend

Three fields, each with a lit heading over it: SEARCH, REPLACE, EXCLUDE. The toggles at the right of the heading row are Aa (match case), ab (whole word) and .* (regular expression) — VS Code's own.

Replace All asks first — the files are rewritten on disk and there is no undo — then replaces every match in the results and reloads any open buffer that was not modified.

The exclude box

Comma-separated globs in VS Code's spelling:

target, *.lock, **/node_modules, src/generated
  • a bare name matches any path component;
  • * and ? match within one component;
  • ** spans directories;
  • naming a directory excludes everything under it.

The box starts out holding .*, which keeps every file and folder whose name begins with a dot — .git, .venv, an agent's own state — out of the results. It is a pattern like any other: delete it to search them.

Excluded directories are never walked. .git, node_modules, target, dist, build, .venv, binaries and files over 1 MB are always skipped.

Find in file

Cmd+F / Ctrl+F opens the same form over the editor: a lit FIND / REPLACE heading over each field, both always shown, … in an empty one, the option toggles and the close mark in the top-right corner, and the match counter along the bottom with Replace · Replace All · < · > at its right end — the two replace actions appear once the replace field has something in it.

  • Tab switches field.
  • F3 / Shift+F3 (or Cmd+G / Cmd+Shift+G in the window on macOS) step through matches — Enter and Shift+Enter in the query do the same; Ctrl+Alt+Enter replaces them all.
  • The bar belongs to the file it was opened on: switching tabs hides it, and coming back brings the query, the options and the counter with it. Closing that file closes it.
  • Match highlighting follows the text as you edit.