Grep Finder for VS Code

Search your workspace like grep, then open several matches side-by-side — each editor scrolled to its own match and scrollable independently.

It lives in the Activity Bar (the icon strip on the left, next to Explorer and Search) and runs on the ripgrep that VS Code already ships with.

Fully offline. No installer. No network access of any kind. There is no separate binary to download, no bundled search engine, no telemetry, no update check — the extension is a UI over the finder that is already inside your editor. Works on an air-gapped machine, and your code never leaves it. See No internet, by design.

Why use it instead of the built-in Search

If you've ever run rg -C 5 someFunction and then wished you could click the results open, that's this extension.

Getting started

1. Install it (see Install) and reload VS Code.
2. Open a folder or workspace.
3. Click the Grep Finder icon in the Activity Bar — or press Ctrl+Alt+F (Cmd+Alt+F on macOS).
4. Type a query. Results appear as you type, grouped by file.

The search box

Three toggles sit inside the search field, just like VS Code's own search. Focusing the box selects whatever is already there, so you can retype straight away.

• Match case — off is case-insensitive, on is exact case. It's a plain on/off switch: no smart-case surprise where one capital letter silently changes results.
• Match whole word — -w; total no longer matches subtotal.
• Use regular expression — off searches your text literally (so a.b means a.b), on treats it as a regex.

Context lines (the grep part)

Below the query are three number fields:

• Before (-B) — lines shown above each match
• After (-A) — lines shown below each match
• Both (-C) — the same number above and below

Only one group is active at a time: Before/After, or Both. Click into a field to activate its group — the other grays out but keeps its numbers, so you can flip between "5 lines of leading context" and "2 either side" without retyping. A hint under the fields always says which group is in effect.

Scoping the search

• files to include — e.g. src/**/*.ts, or several separated by commas: src/**/*.ts, test/**/*.ts
• files to exclude — e.g. **/node_modules/**, **/*.min.js

Files ignored by your .gitignore are skipped, exactly like ripgrep on the command line.

Working with results

Each result block shows the match line (highlighted) plus its context lines, with real line numbers.

• Click a block to select it (it gets a rounded highlight).
• Double-click a block to open the file at that line.
• Click a file header — or its chevron — to collapse/expand that file's results.
• The collapse/expand-all button in the results bar folds every file at once, useful when a query hits 30 files and you want to scan the file list first.
• Result line numbers follow your edits: type above a match and its number shifts with it; on save the search re-runs so everything is exact again.
• The status line reports how many matches in how many files, and says (truncated) if you hit the result cap.

Keyboard

(Arrow keys navigate whenever focus is outside a text field.)

Open matches in a grid

This is the feature the extension exists for.

1. Select the matches you care about — click them, or press Space on each while moving with the arrow keys.
2. Click Open N in grid in the results bar.

VS Code splits the editor area and opens every selected match in its own pane, centered on its match line. Each pane is a real editor, so you can scroll, edit, and navigate them independently — including two panes of the same file showing two different regions.

Layouts follow the count: 2 → side by side, 3 → 3-up, 4 → 2×2, 5–6 → 2×3, 7–9 → 3×3. The cap is configurable (grepFinder.maxGridEditors, default 9).

Try it: search calculateInvoiceTotal, set Both (-C) to 2, select a match in four different files, and press Open 4 in grid — four panes, each parked on its own copy of that function.

Install

From a release (recommended)

Download grep-finder-<version>.vsix from the GitHub Releases page — one file works on every platform — then either:

• In VS Code: Extensions view → … menu → Install from VSIX…, or
• From a terminal:

  code --install-extension grep-finder-<version>.vsix
  

Reload VS Code when prompted. Nothing else is downloaded — no post-install step, no companion binary, no account.

From source — see docs/DEVELOPMENT.md.

Settings

Search for grepFinder in Settings, or edit settings.json:

Requirements

VS Code 1.85 or newer. Nothing else — ripgrep comes with VS Code.

Privacy & security

No internet, by design

Grep Finder makes no network requests of any kind. No telemetry, no analytics, no update checks, no remote code, no crash reporting. Your source code, your queries, and your file names never leave your machine — so it is safe to use on private, proprietary, or air-gapped codebases.

• Nothing to install beyond the extension. It shells out to the ripgrep that is already part of your VS Code installation, so there is no downloader, no bundled search binary, and no first-run setup.
• No runtime dependencies. The packaged extension ships only its own compiled code and the codicon font ("dependencies": {}).
• The results UI can't reach the network either. The webview runs under a strict Content Security Policy including connect-src 'none', which blocks fetch, XMLHttpRequest, and WebSocket outright.
• Read-only. It reads files to search and opens them in the editor; it never writes to your files.
• No shell. ripgrep is launched with an argument array, never a shell string, so search text can't be interpreted as a command.
• Workspace trust. Search works in untrusted workspaces, but a workspace-supplied grepFinder.ripgrepPath is ignored there, so an untrusted folder can't point the extension at an arbitrary executable.

Don't take our word for it — SECURITY.md lists the exact commands to verify all of this yourself against a checkout or an unzipped .vsix. CI runs that same check on every push.

Troubleshooting

"Open a folder to search." — the extension searches workspace folders, so open a folder or workspace first.

Could not find ripgrep / search errors — VS Code has moved its bundled ripgrep around across versions. Set grepFinder.ripgrepPath to an rg binary on your machine (which rg / where rg) and search again. Details are logged to the Grep Finder output channel.

Results say "(truncated)" — you hit grepFinder.maxResults. Narrow the query, add an include glob, or raise the setting.

A file I expected is missing — it's probably in .gitignore, or excluded by your files to exclude globs.

Known limitations

• Binary files are skipped (ripgrep's default).
• Grid opening is capped at 9 editors; beyond that the panes are too small to be useful.
• The results panel is read-only — edit in the opened editors, not in the panel.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md.

Contributing & internals

• docs/DEVELOPMENT.md — build, test, debug, release.
• docs/DESIGN.md — architecture.
• docs/TASKS.md — phase-by-phase task list.
• examples/README.md — sample workspace with a guided walkthrough.

Built with TypeScript, the VS Code Extension API, ripgrep (--json), esbuild, and a plain webview UI.

License & disclaimer

Released under the MIT License — free and open source.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the authors and contributors are not liable for any claim, damages, data loss, or other liability arising from the use of this software. You use it at your own risk. "VS Code" and "Visual Studio Code" are trademarks of Microsoft; this is an independent, unaffiliated project. ripgrep is © its authors under the MIT/Unlicense terms.