Today, we are excited to announce the public preview of Code Search in Visual Studio Team Services. 

With this release you can search for code across TFVC and Git projects in your Visual Studio Team Services account. Not only can you perform full text matching, but for C#, C and C++, it understands the structure of your code and allows you to search for specific contexts, like class definitions, comments, properties, etc. We’ll be adding support for additional languages in the future.

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How to enable Code Search preview

Code Search preview is available as a free extension on Visual Studio Team Services Marketplace. Click the install button on the extension description page and follow instructions displayed, to enable the feature for your account.

Note that you need to be an account admin to install the feature. If you are not, then the install experience will allow you to request your account admin to install the feature.

Installation of the extension triggers indexing of the source code in your account. Depending on the size of the code base, you may have to wait for some time for the index to get built.

You can start searching for code using the search box on the top right corner or use the context menu from the code explorer.

Here are some of the key features of Code Search. Please send us feedback on these features as you use the preview release.

Search across one or more projects

Code Search enables you to search across all projects (TFVC & Git), so you can focus on the results that matter most to you.

Semantic ranking

Ranking ensures you get what you are looking for in the first few results. Code Search uses code semantics as one of the many signals for ranking; this ensures that the matches are laid out in a relevant manner E.g. Files with a term appears as definition are ranked higher.

Rich filtering

Get that extra power from Code Search that lets you filter your results by file path, extension, repo, and project. You can also filter by code type, such as definition, comment, reference, and much more. And, by incorporating logical operators such as AND, OR, NOT, refine your query to get the results you want.

Code collaboration

Share Code Search results with team members using the query URL. Use annotations to figure out who last changed a line of code.

Rich integration with version control

The Code Search interface integrates with familiar controls in the Code Hub, giving you the ability to look up History, compare what’s changed since the last commit or changeset, and much more.

Refer to help documentation for more details.

Got feedback?

How can we make Code Search better for you? Here is how you can get in touch with us

• You can eMail us or
• Ask questions on support forum or
• Post your suggestion ideas