Replace text across files

Replace text across files in Visual Studio Code — with the four heights of help laid out: do it now, make it easier for the next person to accept, work out the right move when you are stuck, and learn the pattern so it stops coming back.

4prompt heights
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The four heights

The same task, four distances: today's deadline, the next reviewer, the stuck moment, the pattern.

Execute — do the immediate task

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Replace the deprecated API name fetchRecordsV1 with fetchRecords in all JavaScript and TypeScript…
Replace the deprecated API name fetchRecordsV1 with fetchRecords in all JavaScript and TypeScript files, run the test suite, and produce a short list of files that required manual fixes after automated replacement.

Improve — make it easier to accept

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Before mass-replacing fetchRecordsV1 with fetchRecords, show me occurrences that look like public…
Before mass-replacing fetchRecordsV1 with fetchRecords, show me occurrences that look like public API surfaces — exported functions, client SDKs, and README examples — and flag places where a naive replace would break backward compatibility or external tutorials.

Decide — diagnose the stuck moment

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I ran a project-wide replace of fetchRecordsV1 to fetchRecords and now the SDK and some examples…

I ran a global replace and the SDK build broke

I ran a project-wide replace of fetchRecordsV1 to fetchRecords and now the SDK and some examples fail to compile. I didn’t know which files were part of the public API. I’m worried we’ve broken external consumers. What likely mistakes did I make and what are the fastest steps to identify and revert the problematic changes selectively?

Become — change the pattern

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I routinely do bulk text replacements and twice this quarter we shipped changes that broke external…

Replaces across files keep breaking public interfaces or docs

I routinely do bulk text replacements and twice this quarter we shipped changes that broke external SDKs or docs. I need a repeatable habit to avoid that without manual per-file checks. Which change to my replace workflow — testing, naming rules, or preflight scripts — will save the most time and prevent consumer breakage?

Next to this one

Other code editor work people do in Visual Studio Code.

Every task here came from the work, not from a feature list — which is why the prompts name what you want done and never the button that does it. The tool changes; the work does not.
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The rest of the map

Same library, five ways in.