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A search context is a user-defined grouping of repositories that helps focus searches on specific areas of your codebase, like frontend, backend, or infrastructure code. Some example queries using search contexts:
  • context:data_engineering userId - search for userId across all repos related to Data Engineering.
  • context:k8s ingress - search for anything related to ingresses in your k8’s configs.
  • ( context:project1 or context:project2 ) logger\.debug - search for debug log calls in project1 and project2
Search contexts are defined in the context object inside of a declarative config. Repositories can be included / excluded from a search context by specifying the repo’s URL in either the include array or exclude array. Glob patterns are supported.

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Example

Let’s assume we have a GitLab instance hosted at https://gitlab.example.com with three top-level groups, web, backend, and shared: 
web/ ├─ admin_panel/ ├─ customer_portal/ ├─ pipelines/ ├─ ... backend/ ├─ billing_server/ ├─ auth_server/ ├─ db_migrations/ ├─ pipelines/ ├─ ... shared/ ├─ protobufs/ ├─ react/ ├─ pipelines/ ├─ ...
To make searching easier, we can create three search contexts in our config.json:
  • web: For all frontend-related code
  • backend: For backend services and shared APIs
  • pipelines: For all CI/CD configurations
{  "$schema": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sourcebot-dev/sourcebot/main/schemas/v3/index.json",  "contexts": {  "web": {  // To include repositories in a search context,  // you can reference them...  "include": [  // ... individually by specifying the repo URL.  "gitlab.example.com/web/admin_panel/core",    // ... or as groups using glob patterns. This is  // particularly useful for including entire "sub-folders"  // of repositories in one go.  "gitlab.example.com/web/customer_portal/**",  "gitlab.example.com/shared/react/**",  "gitlab.example.com/shared/protobufs/**"  ],   // Same with excluding repositories.  "exclude": [  "gitlab.example.com/web/customer_portal/pipelines",  "gitlab.example.com/shared/react/hooks/**",  ],   // Optional description of the search context  // that surfaces in the UI.  "description": "Web related repos."  },  "backend": { /* ... specifies backend replated repos ... */},  "pipelines": { /* ... specifies pipeline related repos ... */ }  },  "connections": {  /* ...connection definitions... */  } }
Repo URLs are expected to be formatted without the leading http(s):// prefix. For example:
  • github.com/sourcebot-dev/sourcebot (link)
  • gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab (link)
  • chromium.googlesource.com/chromium (link)
Once configured, you can use these contexts in the search bar by prefixing your query with the context name. For example:
  • context:web login form searches for login form code in frontend repositories
  • context:backend auth searches for authentication code in backend services
  • context:pipelines deploy searches for deployment configurations
Example Like other prefixes, contexts can be negated using - or combined using or:
  • -context:web excludes frontend repositories from results
  • ( context:web or context:backend ) searches across both frontend and backend code
See this doc for more details on the search query syntax.

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Schema reference

schemas/v3/searchContext.json
{  "$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft-07/schema#",  "type": "object",  "title": "SearchContext",  "description": "Search context",  "properties": {  "include": {  "type": "array",  "description": "List of repositories to include in the search context. Expected to be formatted as a URL without any leading http(s):// prefix (e.g., 'github.com/sourcebot-dev/sourcebot'). Glob patterns are supported.",  "items": {  "type": "string"  },  "examples": [  [  "github.com/sourcebot-dev/**",  "gerrit.example.org/sub/path/**"  ]  ]  },  "includeConnections": {  "type": "array",  "description": "List of connections to include in the search context.",  "items": {  "type": "string"  }  },  "exclude": {  "type": "array",  "description": "List of repositories to exclude from the search context. Expected to be formatted as a URL without any leading http(s):// prefix (e.g., 'github.com/sourcebot-dev/sourcebot'). Glob patterns are supported.",  "items": {  "type": "string"  },  "examples": [  [  "github.com/sourcebot-dev/sourcebot",  "gerrit.example.org/sub/path/**"  ]  ]  },  "excludeConnections": {  "type": "array",  "description": "List of connections to exclude from the search context.",  "items": {  "type": "string"  }  },  "description": {  "type": "string",  "description": "Optional description of the search context that surfaces in the UI."  }  },  "additionalProperties": false }
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