Searching multiple branches and tags

By default, only the default branch of a repository is indexed and can be searched. Sourcebot can be configured to index additional branches (or tags) enabling multi-branch search. This is useful for scenarios such as:

• Searching across different releases
• Searching through feature branches during development
• Tracking changes across multiple maintenance branches simultaneously

​

Configuration

Multi-branch indexing is configured on in the connection using the revisions.branches and revisions.tags arrays. Glob patterns are supported. For example:

{
    "$schema": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sourcebot-dev/sourcebot/main/schemas/v3/index.json",
    "connections": {
        "my-connection": {
            "type": "github",
            // For each of the repositories defined in this connection...
            "repos": [
                "org/repo1",
                "org/repo2"
            ],
            // ... index the default branch, as well as...
            "revisions": {
                // These branches (if they exist):
                "branches": [
                    // Exact matches
                    "dev",
                    "staging",

                    // Glob patterns
                    "feature/*" // Matches: feature/auth, feature/ui, etc.
                ],
                
                // These tags (if they exist):
                "tags": [
                    // Exact matches
                    "v4.0.0-dev",
                    
                    // Glob patterns
                    "v3.*.*", // Matches: v3.0.0, v3.0.1, etc.
                    "rc-*"    // Matches: rc-1, rc-2, etc.
                ]
            }
        }
    }
}

For each repo defined in the connection, any branches or tags matching the patterns in branches and tags array will be indexed.

​

Search syntax

To search branches other than the default, the rev: prefix can be used followed by the branch (or tag) name:

To search across all branches, rev:*:

Additional info:

• refs/heads/ or refs/tags/ can be included to fully qualify a branch or a tag, respectively. E.g., rev:refs/heads/foo will search the branch foo, while rev:refs/tags/foo will search the tag foo.
• rev: does not support regular expressions or glob patterns. It uses a simple contains call between the branch name and the pattern. See here.

​

Platform support