Exact code search

DETAILS: Tier: Premium, Ultimate Offering: GitLab.com, Self-managed Status: Beta

• Introduced as a beta in GitLab 15.9 with flags named index_code_with_zoekt and search_code_with_zoekt. Disabled by default.
• Enabled on GitLab.com in GitLab 16.6.
• Feature flags index_code_with_zoekt and search_code_with_zoekt removed in GitLab 17.1.

WARNING: This feature is in beta and subject to change without notice. For more information, see epic 9404.

With exact code search, you can use exact match and regular expression modes to search for code in all GitLab or in a specific project.

Exact code search is powered by Zoekt and is used by default in groups where the feature is enabled.

Enable exact code search

• For GitLab.com, exact code search is enabled in paid subscriptions.
• For GitLab self-managed, an administrator must install Zoekt and enable exact code search.

In user preferences, you can disable exact code search to use advanced search instead.

Zoekt search API

• Introduced in GitLab 16.9 with a flag named zoekt_search_api. Enabled by default.

FLAG: The availability of this feature is controlled by a feature flag. For more information, see the history. This feature is available for testing, but not ready for production use.

With the Zoekt search API, you can use the search API for exact code search. If you want to use advanced search or basic search instead, see specify a search type.

By default, the Zoekt search API is disabled on GitLab.com to avoid breaking changes. To request access to this feature, contact GitLab.

Global code search

• Introduced in GitLab 16.11 with a flag named zoekt_cross_namespace_search. Disabled by default.

FLAG: The availability of this feature is controlled by a feature flag. For more information, see the history. This feature is available for testing, but not ready for production use.

Use this feature to search code across the entire GitLab instance.

Global code search does not perform well on large GitLab instances. When this feature is enabled for instances with more than 20,000 projects, your search might time out.

Search modes

• Introduced in GitLab 16.8 with a flag named zoekt_exact_search. Disabled by default.
• Generally available in GitLab 17.3. Feature flag zoekt_exact_search removed.

GitLab has two search modes:

• Exact match mode: returns results that exactly match the query.
• Regular expression mode: supports regular and boolean expressions.

The exact match mode is used by default. To switch to the regular expression mode, to the right of the search box, select Use regular expression ({regular-expression}).

Syntax

This table shows some example queries for exact match and regular expression modes.

Query	Exact match mode	Regular expression mode
"foo"	"foo"	foo
foo file:^doc/	foo in directories that start with /doc	foo in directories that start with /doc
"class foo"	"class foo"	class foo
class foo	class foo	class and foo
foo or bar	foo or bar	foo or bar
class Foo	class Foo (case insensitive)	class (case insensitive) and Foo (case sensitive)
class Foo case:yes	class Foo (case sensitive)	class and Foo (both case sensitive)
foo -bar	foo -bar	foo but not bar
foo file:js	foo in files with names that contain js	foo in files with names that contain js
foo -file:test	foo in files with names that do not contain test	foo in files with names that do not contain test
foo lang:ruby	foo in Ruby source code	foo in Ruby source code
foo file:\.js$	foo in files with names that end with .js	foo in files with names that end with .js
foo.*bar	None	foo.*bar (regular expression)
sym:foo	foo in symbols like class, method, and variable names	foo in symbols like class, method, and variable names

Known issues

• You can only search files smaller than 1 MB with less than 20_000 trigrams. For more information, see issue 455073.
• You can use exact code search on the default branch of a project only. For more information, see issue 403307.