# ADR-0018: Intent-Based Code Search Tools

**Status:** Superseded — merged into `code-intel/` (ADR-0003 v2.0)
**Date:** 2026-05-16 (originally 2026-05-16)
**Extension:** ~~`extensions/search-helpers/`~~ → `extensions/code-intel/`

## Summary

The four intent-based search tools (`find_definition`, `find_imports`, `search_config`, `project_overview`) from this ADR have been consolidated:

- `find_definition` + `find_imports` → **`find_symbol`** (definition/usage modes)
- `search_config` → **`search_config`** (unchanged semantics)
- `project_overview` → **dropped** (AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md era — every repo has one now)

Shared infrastructure (noise globs, exec helpers, language mapping) extracted to `extensions/shared/`.

See [ADR-0003](adr-0003-code-intel.md) for the current architecture.

## Original Problem (preserved for history)

Session analysis across 787 sessions revealed 20% of searches required multi-step refinement chains — the agent constructs generic grep patterns and manually narrows from there. Root cause: missing search intent.

## Validation

The original analysis scripts and findings remain valid. The consolidation preserves all search capabilities while reducing tool count from 7 to 3 and adding tree-sitter structural accuracy.
