ripgrep

Ripgrep is a line-oriented search tool that recursively searches directories for regex patterns. It's 10-100x faster than grep and respects .gitignore by default. Use it instead of grep, find, or manually reading large files.

Core principle: When you need to find text in files, use ripgrep. Don't read entire files into context when you can search them.

| Basic search | rg "pattern" [path] | | Case insensitive | rg -i "pattern" | | Smart case (auto) | rg -S "pattern" | | Whole word only | rg -w "word" | | Fixed string (no regex) | rg -F "literal.string" | | Show context lines | rg -C 3 "pattern" (3 before & after) | | Show line numbers | rg -n "pattern" (default in tty) |