Tool Reference

Tool Reference

SymForge currently exposes 31 tools plus prompts and resources.

Use this page for

looking up the right tool family after SymForge is already installed and connected in your client.

Orientation

Tool	Purpose
health	Index status, file/symbol counts, watcher state, parse diagnostics
get_repo_map	Structured overview of the entire repository with adjustable detail
explore	Concept-driven exploration with stemmed matching and convention enrichment

Reading Code

Tool	Purpose
get_file_context	File outline, imports, consumers, references, git context — call before reading a source file
get_file_content	Exact file reads with line ranges or around a symbol — for docs, config, or literal source
get_symbol	Full source of a function, struct, class, etc. by name (batch mode supported)
get_symbol_context	Symbol body + callers + callees + type dependencies, or expanded bundles

Searching

Tool	Purpose
search_symbols	Find symbols by name, kind, language, or path prefix
search_text	Full-text search with enclosing symbol context
search_files	Ranked file path discovery with co-change coupling

References and Dependencies

Tool	Purpose
find_references	Call sites, imports, type usages, implementations
find_dependents	File-level dependency graph
trace_symbol	Multi-hop caller/callee chains for a symbol
inspect_match	Deep-dive a search match with full symbol context

Git and Change Inspection

Tool	Purpose
what_changed	Changed files by git ref, timestamp, or working tree
analyze_file_impact	Reindex one file and report affected symbols and dependents
diff_symbols	Symbol-level diff between git refs (AST-based for supported languages, regex fallback for others)

Validation

Tool	Purpose
validate_file_syntax	Parse diagnostics with line/column location for both code files (tree-sitter) and config files (TOML, JSON, YAML, Env)

Editing

Tool	Purpose
edit_plan	Analyze impact and suggest the correct edit tool sequence
replace_symbol_body	Replace an entire symbol definition by name
edit_within_symbol	Scoped find/replace inside one symbol's range
insert_symbol	Insert code before or after a named symbol
delete_symbol	Delete a symbol and its attached doc comments by name
batch_edit	Apply multiple symbol-addressed edits atomically across files
batch_rename	Rename a symbol and update all references project-wide
batch_insert	Insert code before/after multiple symbols across files

Agent-oriented helpers

Tool	Purpose
ask	Natural-language questions routed to the right SymForge tool internally
conventions	Auto-detect project coding patterns
context_inventory	See what symbols and files you've already fetched this session
investigation_suggest	Find gaps in your loaded context
index_folder	Full reindex of a directory

Practical defaults

• Use get_file_context before reading source files.
• Use search_symbols or search_text before broad raw file scanning.
• Use get_file_content for docs and config where exact wording matters.
• Use edit_plan before non-trivial edits.
• Use analyze_file_impact after small edits and index_folder after large ones.
• edit_plan accepts a bare symbol, a file path, or path::symbol.
• batch_edit and batch_insert accept shorthand strings like src/lib.rs::helper => delete.

Tip

The fastest mental model is: orient with get_repo_map or explore, narrow with search_*, inspect with get_*, trace with find_references or trace_symbol, then edit with the symbol-aware edit tools.

Edit behavior

SymForge edit tools are intended to replace raw text-copy editing for source code.

Important behaviors:

• symbol-addressed range resolution
• doc-comment-aware edit ranges
• automatic indentation
• atomic writes
• immediate reindexing
• stale-callsite warnings on signature changes where applicable

Prompts

SymForge also exposes prompts for higher-level workflows:

• symforge-review
• symforge-architecture
• symforge-triage
• symforge-onboard
• symforge-refactor
• symforge-debug

These prompts return procedural workflows that tell the agent which SymForge tools to call next.

Resources

Static resources:

• symforge://repo/health
• symforge://repo/outline
• symforge://repo/map
• symforge://repo/changes/uncommitted

Resource templates:

• symforge://file/context?...
• symforge://file/content?...
• symforge://symbol/detail?...
• symforge://symbol/context?...