Search across files

Search 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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Find every occurrence of the feature flag name enableNewSearch across the codebase and open the…
Find every occurrence of the feature flag name enableNewSearch across the codebase and open the list so I can review each usage before I flip it for Friday’s deploy.

Improve — make it easier to accept

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Before I flip enableNewSearch, surface the most risky uses of that flag: show callbacks that run on…
Before I flip enableNewSearch, surface the most risky uses of that flag: show callbacks that run on startup, any server-side checks, and configuration files; put the number of references and the top three files with the heaviest usage up front.

Decide — diagnose the stuck moment

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I searched for enableNewSearch and got dozens of hits from documentation and comment blocks; I need…

I searched for enableNewSearch but got too many irrelevant hits

I searched for enableNewSearch and got dozens of hits from documentation and comment blocks; I need to know which are actual runtime checks versus non-executable mentions. I’m worried I’ll miss a server-side switch that controls behavior in production. How do I reliably distinguish executable references from noise and what’s the next step to ensure I don’t flip the flag prematurely?

Become — change the pattern

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Across projects I waste 30–60 minutes per feature toggling task sifting through false positives…

Search results frequently include docs and comments that waste my time

Across projects I waste 30–60 minutes per feature toggling task sifting through false positives from docs and generated files. Where should I change my workflow so searches return actionable hits: naming conventions, ignore lists, or a small pre-search checklist? Recommend the single highest-impact habit to adopt first.

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.
Copyright © LLOS.ai · 2026 — original pedagogy, voice, and design — all rights reserved.

The rest of the map

Same library, five ways in.