Ratsnest

A fast, terminal-based file search and content exploration tool built with Rust and Ratatui.

Features

• Fuzzy file search: Live fuzzy matching for filenames as you type
• Content search: Search text within files across your entire project
• Git awareness: Respects .gitignore files and git repositories
• Async performance: Concurrent file processing for fast searches
• Syntax highlighting: Match highlighting in search results
• Keyboard navigation: Vim-style navigation (hjkl) and standard arrow keys

Screenshots

File Browser

Content Search

Help Screen

Installation

From Source

git clone https://github.com/Cod-e-Codes/ratsnest.git
cd ratsnest
cargo build --release

The binary will be available at target/release/ratsnest.

Usage

# Search in current directory
ratsnest

# Search in specific directory
ratsnest -d /path/to/directory

# Start with initial search pattern
ratsnest -d /path/to/directory -p "pattern"

Options

• -d, --directory <PATH>: Directory to search (default: current directory)
• -p, --pattern <PATTERN>: Initial search pattern

Key Bindings

Navigation

• ↑/k, ↓/j: Navigate up/down
• Page Up/Down: Navigate by pages
• Home/End: Go to start/end of list
• Tab: Switch between File Browser and Content Search modes
• n/]: Next page
• p/[: Previous page
• Ctrl+g: First page
• G: Last page

Search

• /: Start search input (live search in File Browser mode)
• Enter: Execute search (required for Content Search mode)
• Esc: Cancel search input

General

• h/F1: Toggle help screen
• q: Quit application

Modes

File Browser Mode

• Lists all files in the directory
• Live fuzzy search as you type
• Respects gitignore patterns
• Pagination: Browse files in pages when directory contains many files

Content Search Mode

• Search for text within files
• Shows filename, line number, and context
• Highlights matches in results
• Pagination: Browse search results in pages for large datasets

Requirements

• Rust 1.70 or later

Dependencies

• anyhow: Error handling
• clap: Command-line argument parsing
• crossterm: Terminal control
• fuzzy-matcher: Fuzzy string matching
• ignore: Git-aware file walking
• ratatui: Terminal UI framework
• tokio: Async runtime

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please ensure all tests pass and follow the existing code style before submitting a pull request.