codetool-explore

codetool-explore is a workspace exploration library built for coding-agent harnesses: fast content search, fast filename/path discovery, read-only file viewing, compact structured results, and predictable token usage.

• Agent-first API: one public explore() call with target="content", "path", "content_or_path", "read", or "list".
• Performance-oriented: dependency-free Python fallback plus optional Rust CLI acceleration for literal and regex content/path search.
• Token-compressed output: compact result keys by default for search, tree-compressed text by default for list, plain text by default for read, result_format="text" for raw RTK-style text, and result_format="full" for the uncompressed backend shape.

from codetool_explore import explore

content = explore("UserService", root=".", mode="files")
paths = explore("service", root=".", target="path", glob="*.py")
mixed = explore("UserService", root=".", target="content_or_path")
scoped = explore("search_workspace", root=["src", "webapp", "tests"], regex=False)
snippet = explore("README.md", root=".", target="read", start_line=20, limit=40)
listing = explore("src", root=".", target="list", limit=100)

Patterns are regexes by default, so alternation works without extra flags:

explore("Maximum number of results|Text or regex pattern", root="tests")

Pass regex=False for exact literal matching.

For maximum token compression, request raw text:

print(explore("UserService", root=".", regex=False, result_format="text"))

Raw text omits backend/totals metadata, groups repeated path prefixes in a small tree, crops long snippets/context aggressively, and prints No Match for empty results. It includes a compact pagination header only when another page exists:

-- more: cursor=50
src/
 a.py

Raw mode grammar:

• mode="files": matching filenames only.
• mode="count": path xN, where N is the per-file count.
• mode="snippets": path:line:text without context, or tree-grouped files where line:text marks a match and other indented text is surrounding context. With target="content_or_path", path-only matches are returned as filename rows.

API

explore(
    pattern,
    root=".",               # path, file, or non-empty list/tuple of paths
    target="content",       # "content", "path", "content_or_path", "read", or "list"
    regex=True,             # set False for literal search
    path_scope="path",      # "path" or "basename" for path matching
    glob=None,
    exclude=None,
    case="smart",
    mode="files",          # "files", "snippets", or "count"
    context_lines=0,
    limit=50,
    cursor=None,
    start_line=1,           # first line for target="read"
    backend="auto",        # "auto", "python", "rust"/"native"
    result_format=None,     # default compressed for search, text for read, tree text for list
)

target="content" searches file contents. target="path" searches relative file paths without opening file contents. target="content_or_path" returns files matching either target and marks each row with its match kind. mode="snippets" supports target="content" and target="content_or_path"; path-only rows under target="content_or_path" are returned without line/snippet fields.

target="read" treats pattern as one known file path, resolves relative paths under each root, and returns plain text with no line-number prefixes. When more than one file is read, each file is prefixed by a compact path: header. Use start_line and limit to cap the returned line range; if more lines remain, text output starts with -- more: cursor=N. CSV files are read as ordinary text. Binary-looking, missing, unreadable, or directory paths fail with controlled ExploreError subclasses. If root is already a file, target="read" reads that file directly, so accidental search-like pattern values from tool calls still produce the requested line range.

target="list" treats pattern as one file/directory path and returns one directory level under each root. Text output uses the same compact tree display as raw search output when that saves tokens, appending each root's listing in root order. Directories end with /; file paths are returned as one entry. It honors multi-root common-base paths, glob, exclude, ignore files, limit, and cursor. Read/list use the pure-Python stdlib implementation even when backend="auto" or "rust" is requested.

backend="auto" uses the Rust helper when present, then falls back to pure Python. Regex searches use Rust when supported by its regex engine and fall back to Python for compatibility, including Python re.finditer counts for patterns that can match empty spans.

root accepts str | os.PathLike | Sequence[str | os.PathLike]. It may be a workspace directory, a single file, or a non-empty list/tuple of directories and files:

explore("search_workspace", root=["src", "webapp", "tests"], regex=False)

When calling through JSON/tool schemas, pass multi-root values as a JSON array, for example "root": ["src", "webapp", "tests"]. For resilience with coding agents, a space-delimited string such as "root": "src webapp tests" is also treated as multiple roots when that exact path does not exist and every split token is an existing file or directory. Existing paths with spaces still take priority; quote individual spaced paths if combining them in one string.

File roots search/read only that file and report paths relative to the file's parent directory; listing a file path returns one file entry. Multi-root searches/reads/listings report paths relative to the roots' common base, so sibling roots keep prefixes such as src/... and tests/...; this also lets exclude=["src/generated/**"] target one root.

Controlled failures raise ExploreError subclasses:

• ExploreArgumentError for invalid arguments.
• ExplorePatternError for invalid/unsupported patterns.
• ExploreRootError for missing or unsearchable roots.
• ExploreBackendError for backend runtime failures.

CLI

codetool-explore "UserService" . --literal --format text
codetool-explore "service" . --target path --literal
codetool-explore "User(Service|Repository)" --root src --mode snippets --raw
codetool-explore "search_workspace" --root src --root webapp --root tests --literal
codetool-explore --read README.md --start-line 20 --limit 40
codetool-explore --read settings.py --root src --root tests
codetool-explore --list . --root src --root tests --glob "*.py"

The CLI defaults to compact JSON for search, plain text for --read, and tree-compressed text for --list. Use --format text or --raw for raw search text; no search matches print No Match. Repeat --root for multiple search/read/list roots. A single quoted space-delimited --root is accepted as a compatibility fallback when it can be split into existing roots.

Install

uv install codetool-explore

Wheels can include a platform-specific Rust helper. Without it, the package still works through the Python stdlib backend.

Benchmarks

Reproduce and refresh the generated README data:

cargo build --release --manifest-path rust/Cargo.toml
uv run python benchmarks/benchmark_search.py \
  --output reports/search_benchmark.json \
  --update-readme
uv run python benchmarks/benchmark_output_lengths.py \
  --output reports/rtk_vs_codetool_output_lengths.json
uv run python scripts/update_readme_benchmarks.py \
  --performance reports/search_benchmark.json \
  --tokens reports/rtk_vs_codetool_output_lengths.json

Execution performance

Mean of median wall-clock timings across 5 corpora × 7 scenarios, 5 measured rounds after 1 warmup.

codetool-explore is the fastest tool in this run.

Source: reports/search_benchmark.json.

Token compression

Token counts use tiktoken when available. The table compares output across 7 RTK-corpus scenarios.

codetool-explore is raw text from explore(..., result_format="text"); it omits backend/totals metadata, includes only a cursor hint when truncated, and prints No Match for empty pages. It is 0.56× the rtk grep token count in this run.

Source: reports/rtk_vs_codetool_output_lengths.json.

Development

uv run pytest
uv run python scripts/package_rust_binary.py
uv build --wheel

Release wheels are built in CI with the staged Rust helper for each target platform.