AST

Use the ast tool when textual search is too brittle and the task depends on Elixir syntax structure.

Common actions

• search — find one AST pattern.
• search_many — find several patterns in one pass.
• replace — rewrite code by AST pattern.
• diff — preview structural edits before writing.

Guidelines

• Prefer narrow patterns and paths.
• Use search_many for independent probes instead of several separate searches.
• Keep allow_broad disabled unless a repository-wide syntax scan is intentional.
• Review replacement diffs before applying broad rewrites.

Examples

%{action: "search", pattern: "IO.inspect(_)", path: "lib"}

%{
  action: "search_many",
  patterns: ["dbg(_)", "IO.inspect(_)"],
  path: "lib",
  limit: 50
}