Lightning-fast file name search with granular directory filtering.
🚀 Why GrepScout?
Ever felt Quick Open (Ctrl+P) is too fuzzy and gives you too many irrelevant results? Or that Full-Text Search (Ctrl+Shift+F) is too heavy when you just want to find a file by its name?
GrepScout is designed to bridge this gap. It provides a dedicated, highly granular file-name search tool built directly into your Activity Bar. It's for power users who need exact control over where they are looking without the overhead of content searching.
✨ Key Features
- 🔍 Targeted File Name Search: Search exclusively by file name (e.g.,
package.json,*.config.js,User*) without querying file contents. - 📁 Granular Filtering: Use dedicated "Files to Include" and "Files to Exclude" inputs with full glob pattern support (e.g.,
src/components/**). - 💨 Lightning Fast: Uses an in-memory file cache for sub-second filtering, even in massive monorepos.
- 🧠 Search History: Quickly cycle through your recent queries using the Up and Down arrow keys in the search box.
- 🧩 Native UI integration: A seamless sidebar experience built with React that adopts your editor's theme colors and styling precisely.
- ⚡ One-Click Open: Results are displayed in a clean, hierarchical tree view. Single-click to open, keeping your focus where it belongs.
🛠️ How to Use
- Activate: Open the GrepScout view from the Activity Bar (look for the search icon) or use the shortcut
Ctrl + Alt + F(Mac:Cmd + Alt + F). - Search: Enter your file name or pattern in the top search box.
- Refine: Toggle the
...menu to specify directories to include or exclude. - Browse: Explore the result tree and click any file to open it in the editor.
⚙️ Extension Settings
This extension currently uses default search exclusion rules. Additional configurable settings are planned for future releases.
📌 Keyboard Shortcuts
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
Ctrl+Alt+F |
Open the GrepScout Sidebar |
Up Arrow |
Previous search query |
Down Arrow |
Next search query |
⌨️ Available Commands
This extension provides the following commands via the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P):
GrepScout: Open GrepScout– Shows the search sidebar.GrepScout: Refresh Cache– Manually triggers a re-index of the workspace.GrepScout: Collapse All– Collapses all folders in the search results tree.
📋 Requirements
- VS Code version 1.85.0 or higher.
🐛 Known Issues
- Large monorepos may take a moment for the initial indexing on first activation.