Find Replace Skill | Agent Skills

Find Replace

Modern find-and-replace using sd.

sd Basics

# Replace in file (in-place)
sd 'oldText' 'newText' file.txt

# Replace in multiple files
sd 'oldText' 'newText' *.js

# Preview without changing (pipe)
cat file.txt | sd 'old' 'new'

sd vs sed

| sed | sd | |-----|-----| | sed 's/old/new/g' | sd 'old' 'new' | | sed -i 's/old/new/g' | sd 'old' 'new' file | | sed 's#path/to#new/path#g' | sd 'path/to' 'new/path' |

Key difference: sd is global by default, no delimiter issues.

Common Patterns

# Variable/function rename
sd 'oldName' 'newName' src/**/*.ts

# Word boundaries (avoid partial matches)
sd '\boldName\b' 'newName' src/**/*.ts

# Import path update
sd "from '../utils'" "from '@/utils'" src/**/*.ts

# Capture groups
sd 'console\.log\((.*)\)' 'logger.info($1)' src/**/*.js

Safe Batch Workflow

# 1. List affected files
rg -l 'oldPattern' src/

# 2. Preview replacements
rg 'oldPattern' -r 'newPattern' src/

# 3. Apply
sd 'oldPattern' 'newPattern' $(rg -l 'oldPattern' src/)

# 4. Verify
rg 'oldPattern' src/  # Should return nothing
git diff              # Review changes

Special Characters

| Character | Escape | |-----------|--------| | . | \. | | * | \* | | [ ] | \[ \] | | $ | \$ | | \ | \\ |

Tips

| Tip | Reason | |-----|--------| | Always preview with rg -r first | Avoid mistakes | | Use git before bulk changes | Easy rollback | | Use \b for word boundaries | Avoid partial matches | | Quote patterns | Prevent shell interpretation |

Additional Resources

For detailed patterns, load:

./references/advanced-patterns.md - Regex, batch workflows, real-world examples

Agent Skills: Find Replace

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