Query: search, ask, context, symbol, why, status

repowise search#

Search the wiki by keyword, meaning, or symbol name.

repowise search QUERY [PATH] [OPTIONS]

repowise search "auth token validation"
repowise search "auth token validation" --mode semantic --limit 20
repowise search "GraphBuilder" --mode symbol
repowise search "cli/output.py" --mode path
repowise search "where is resolve_console_width called" --mode auto
repowise search "rate limit" --repo backend     # workspace, one repo
repowise search "rate limit" --all              # workspace, fan-out

Modes:

• fulltext / semantic: both route to the tool's fused concept mode, which combines full-text and vector search through RRF rather than choosing one. semantic falls back to full-text alone on a keyless index.
• symbol: symbol name match.
• auto, concept, path, hybrid: the underlying search_codebase tool's own mode spellings, accepted directly.

--format json emits a trimmed projection (score, title, page_type, path, snippet per hit, plus candidates). --full returns the tool's raw dict.

There is no repowise query command. For a synthesized answer rather than a keyword lookup, use repowise ask below, the MCP get_answer tool from your editor, or the Chat tab in the web UI (repowise serve).

repowise ask QUESTION#

Answer a question about the codebase, with citations. The same synthesis the get_answer MCP tool performs: hybrid retrieval followed by an LLM answer over what it found, so this is the one command in this cluster that costs an LLM call.

repowise ask QUESTION [OPTIONS]

repowise ask "how does the retry backoff work?"
repowise ask "where is the session cookie set?" --format json
repowise ask "how is width resolved?" --scope packages/cli/
repowise ask "why is auth split across two modules?" --full

confidence: high is content-grounded, so it can be cited directly. A low-confidence answer returns best_guesses (a file plus why it's in the running) instead of an empty one.

repowise context TARGETS...#

Triage card for files, modules, or symbols: title, summary, architectural layer, hotspot and bug-fix history, doc freshness, and the shape of the verified skeleton. Relationships and risk signals, not source bytes. Batch targets in one call.

repowise context TARGETS... [OPTIONS]

repowise context src/api/routes.py src/api/auth.py
repowise context src/api/routes.py::login --include callers --include metrics
repowise context src/api/routes.py --include skeleton   # + the file's source

No source bytes by default. Pass --include skeleton for the whole file, body-elided and line-verified, in one call, or just read the file.

repowise symbol SYMBOL_ID#

Read one function, class, or constant with live-verified line bounds. source arrives in the same line-numbered format a file read produces; verified: true means the bounds were checked against the live file.

repowise symbol SYMBOL_ID [OPTIONS]

repowise symbol "src/api/routes.py::login"
repowise symbol "src/api/routes.py:140-180"     # live range read
repowise symbol "repowise#a1b2c3d4e5f6"          # a distill omission ref

An ambiguous id (overloads, re-exports) returns every matching body rather than silently picking one. A truncated body carries a continuation you can pass straight back to repowise symbol.

repowise why [QUERY]#

Why the code is shaped this way: decision records, rationale, and git archaeology. Worth running before a refactor or a deliberate divergence from a pattern.

repowise why [QUERY] [OPTIONS]

repowise why "why is auth using JWT?"           # question
repowise why src/api/auth.py                     # governing decisions + origin story
repowise why "why the retry cap?" --target src/api/client.py
repowise why                                     # decision health dashboard

Falls back to git archaeology when a path has no decisions, so it's never empty.

Shared options: ask, context, symbol, why#

These four are thin adapters over the MCP tools of the same name, so they share one option block:

The repo is --path here rather than a trailing positional: context accepts a variadic list of targets, which would swallow a trailing path.

--format json emits a trimmed CLI projection, not the tool's whole response. --full returns the raw dict, the same one an editor's MCP client receives. Nothing that changes the answer is ever trimmed: an error, a not-found, a did-you-mean list, a truncation marker, a continuation token, and ambiguity signals all survive at every format.

repowise status#

Show the wiki's sync state and page statistics: last sync commit, total pages, provider/model, token usage, and a per-type page breakdown.

repowise status [PATH] [OPTIONS]

repowise status
repowise status --workspace
repowise status --no-workspace

In workspace mode, the table includes a Docs column with each repo's page count and a per-repo docs-status block listing skip reasons and the exact remediation command.