FFF Search

A floating, typo-tolerant search box for VS Code — the shape of cmd+p, but searching file contents.

Press cmd+shift+f, type, and preview each hit in the editor behind the picker. An in-memory index makes a keystroke a lookup instead of a directory walk.

Why not ripgrep

Extensions that shell out to rg per keystroke re-walk the tree every time, inherit the extension host's PATH, and drop every result if rg writes to stderr.

Measured on an 11k-file TypeScript repo, Apple Silicon:

	fff (resident index)	`rg` per keystroke
Index build, once per workspace	1.5–3 s	—
Query, warm	2–12 ms	~100 ms
Query, cold	~100 ms	~100 ms
Files read for a warm query	177	all

Warm means the query's files are in fff's content cache; cold means they are not.

Features

cmd+shift+f opens a picker, a second press closes it; results update as you type
Literal search with smart case; fuzzy on zero hits by default, so requestCouponPkg still finds requestCouponPackage. Fuzzy rows underline the fragments that matched, and rows that matched only part of the query are dropped
Two toggle buttons in the input box: regular expressions, and grouping matches under their file
Moving through results previews the hit behind the picker, placed in the lower third so the box does not cover it; esc restores your cursor and scroll position
Row buttons preview without leaving the search, or open the result to the side
Definitions first: lines the engine classifies as declarations are lifted above call sites and marked with a symbol glyph, in the same pass
Honours your excludes: enabled search.exclude and files.exclude entries are applied to the index, so hidden files are never walked; .gitignore, .ignore, .git/info/exclude and git's global excludes apply too
Recent searches on an empty input; frecency ranking persisted across sessions
Index is built once per workspace folder and kept fresh by a watcher, with progress shown while it builds

Install

From the Marketplace:

code --install-extension gaojunran.fff-search

Or from source:

git clone https://github.com/gaojunran/vscode-fff-search
cd vscode-fff-search
npm install
npx @vscode/vsce package
code --install-extension fff-search-*.vsix

Then reload the window.

The engine is a native library, so the Marketplace carries one build per platform: macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), Linux (x64 and arm64) and Windows (x64).

cmd+shift+f replaces the built-in files search, which stays available from the Command Palette ("Files: Find in Files").

Settings

Key	Default
`fffSearch.fuzzy`	`auto`	When to search fuzzy: `auto` retries a zero-hit literal pass, `manual` offers a retry row, `off` disables it
`fffSearch.definitionsFirst`	`true`	Rank classified definitions above the rest
`fffSearch.useExcludeSettings`	`true`	Apply `search.exclude` and `files.exclude` to the index; editing either rebuilds it
`fffSearch.preview`	`true`	Preview results in the editor behind the picker
`fffSearch.restoreEditorOnDismiss`	`true`	Return to the editor, cursor and scroll position the picker was opened from
`fffSearch.smartCase`	`true`	Ignore case unless the query has an uppercase letter
`fffSearch.maxResults`	`50`	Matches per page; the next page is fetched as the cursor nears the end
`fffSearch.maxMatchesPerFile`	`20`	Matches kept per file
`fffSearch.timeBudgetMs`	`150`	Budget per search; larger returns more, and it runs off the main thread
`fffSearch.maxFileSizeMb`	`10`	Larger files are skipped
`fffSearch.seedFromSelection`	`true`	Use the current selection as the query
`fffSearch.persistFrecency`	`true`	Keep frecency and query history in global storage
`fffSearch.eagerIndex`	`true`	Build the index once the window has been quiet for a moment; typing postpones it, switching away starts it

Limitations

Headers are not rows. A file header is a line above its first match, not a focusable group, and the matches are not indented under it. VS Code drops separators whenever it sorts the list, so label sorting is disabled to keep them.
A click cannot preview. QuickPick reports a click and an Enter press identically, and its accept veto is not exposed, so preview is a row button rather than a click.
No definitions-only filter and no context lines: one row is one match, and the classifier is a line heuristic — export const x = factory(...) is not recognised as a definition.
No file or glob scoping. The SDK's grep has no paths/globs, and hidden dot-directories inside a git repo cannot be skipped — fff exposes neither yet (#992).
Native dependency, ~5 MB of prebuilt libraries per platform; the SDK is pinned to 0.11.1-nightly.b3b8ced because the definition tier is broken in 0.11.0.
One folder per picker in a multi-root workspace: the index follows the active editor.

Development

npm install
npm test                      # picker behaviour, no VS Code needed
npx @vscode/vsce package      # build fff-search-<version>.vsix

No bundler and no build step: extension.js is loaded as-is and production dependencies are packed into the .vsix. test/picker.js stubs vscode and @ff-labs/fff-node and drives the picker through its events.

Credits

fff by Dmitry Kovalenko (MIT) — the index and search engine
Inspired by Quick Grep's quick-pick UX