GrepAI Quickstart

This skill provides a complete walkthrough to get GrepAI running and searching your code in 5 minutes.

When to Use This Skill

• First time using GrepAI

• Need a quick refresher on basic workflow

• Setting up GrepAI on a new project

• Demonstrating GrepAI to someone

Prerequisites

• Terminal access

• A code project to index

Step 1: Install GrepAI

macOS

brew install yoanbernabeu/tap/grepai

Linux/macOS (Alternative)

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/yoanbernabeu/grepai/main/install.sh | sh

Windows

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/yoanbernabeu/grepai/main/install.ps1 | iex

Verify: grepai version

Step 2: Install Ollama (Local Embeddings)

macOS

brew install ollama ollama serve & ollama pull nomic-embed-text

Linux

curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh ollama serve & ollama pull nomic-embed-text

Verify: curl http://localhost:11434/api/tags

Step 3: Initialize Your Project

Navigate to your project and initialize GrepAI:

cd /path/to/your/project grepai init

This creates .grepai/config.yaml with default settings:

• Ollama as embedding provider

• nomic-embed-text model

• GOB file storage

• Standard ignore patterns

Step 4: Start Indexing

Start the watch daemon to index your code:

grepai watch

What happens:

• Scans all source files (respects .gitignore )

• Chunks code into ~512 token segments

• Generates embeddings via Ollama

• Stores vectors in .grepai/index.gob

First indexing output:

🔍 GrepAI Watch Scanning files... Found 245 files Processing chunks... ████████████████████████████████ 100% Indexed 1,234 chunks Watching for changes...

Background Mode

For long-running projects:

Start in background

grepai watch --background

Check status

grepai watch --status

Stop when done

grepai watch --stop

Step 5: Search Your Code

Now search semantically:

Basic search

grepai search "authentication flow"

Limit results

grepai search "error handling" --limit 5

JSON output for scripts

grepai search "database queries" --json

Example Output

Score: 0.89 | src/auth/middleware.go:15-45 ────────────────────────────────────────── func AuthMiddleware() gin.HandlerFunc { return func(c *gin.Context) { token := c.GetHeader("Authorization") if token == "" { c.AbortWithStatus(401) return } // Validate JWT token... } }

Score: 0.82 | src/auth/jwt.go:23-55 ────────────────────────────────────────── func ValidateToken(tokenString string) (*Claims, error) { token, err := jwt.Parse(tokenString, func(t *jwt.Token) (interface{}, error) { return []byte(secretKey), nil }) // ... }

Step 6: Analyze Call Graphs (Optional)

Trace function relationships:

Who calls this function?

grepai trace callers "Login"

What does this function call?

grepai trace callees "ProcessPayment"

Full dependency graph

grepai trace graph "ValidateToken" --depth 3

Complete Workflow Summary

1. Install (once)

brew install yoanbernabeu/tap/grepai brew install ollama && ollama serve & && ollama pull nomic-embed-text

2. Setup project (once per project)

cd /your/project grepai init

3. Index (run in background)

grepai watch --background

4. Search (as needed)

grepai search "your query here"

5. Trace (as needed)

grepai trace callers "FunctionName"

Quick Command Reference

Command Purpose

grepai init

Initialize project config

grepai watch

Start indexing daemon

grepai watch --background

Run daemon in background

grepai watch --status

Check daemon status

grepai watch --stop

Stop daemon

grepai search "query"

Semantic search

grepai search --json

JSON output

grepai trace callers "fn"

Find callers

grepai trace callees "fn"

Find callees

grepai status

Index statistics

grepai version

Show version

Search Tips

Be descriptive, not literal:

• ✅ "user authentication and session management"

• ❌ "auth"

Describe intent:

• ✅ "where errors are logged to the console"

• ❌ "console.error"

Use English:

• Models are trained primarily on English text

• Works best with English queries

Next Steps

After mastering the basics:

• Configure embeddings: See grepai-embeddings-* skills

• Setup storage: See grepai-storage-* skills

• Advanced search: See grepai-search-* skills

• MCP integration: See grepai-mcp-* skills

Output Format

Successful quickstart:

✅ GrepAI Quickstart Complete

Project: /path/to/your/project Files indexed: 245 Chunks created: 1,234 Embedder: Ollama (nomic-embed-text) Storage: GOB (local file)

Try these searches:

• grepai search "main entry point"
• grepai search "database connection"
• grepai search "error handling"