DEV Community
•
2026-04-08 07:21
Building Your Own "Google Maps for Codebases": A Guide to Semantic Code Search with LLMs
From Keyword Chaos to Semantic Understanding
You’re staring at a massive, unfamiliar codebase. A senior engineer says, "The logic for processing user subscriptions is in here somewhere." You grep for "subscription," but get 500 results across controllers, models, services, and tests. You try "billing," "renewal," "payment"—each a new avalanche. Hours later, you’re deep in a rabbit hole,...
