search_regex

Regular-expression search across vault notes. Each match returns line/col + the matched text; capped per file. Pattern length is bounded, patterns with nested quantifiers are rejected, and execution is time-budgeted (governor.regexTimeoutMs) to prevent catastrophic backtracking; flags may only be i, m, s, u.

Domain	search
Scopes	read:notes
Access	read
Tags	read-only, domain:search
Profile	core, full

Annotations

Annotation	Value
Read-only	yes
Destructive	no
Idempotent	no
Accepts an idempotency key	no

Idempotent is the advisory MCP idempotentHint. Destructive is also yes for a tool that asks for confirmation only on some calls.

Confirmation (human in the loop)

No human confirmation is required to call this tool.

Input

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
vault	string		—	Vault id. May be omitted when only one vault is available. length 1–64; pattern ^[a-z0-9_-]+$
pattern	string	yes	—	length 1–1000
flags	string		"i"	length ≤ 8; pattern ^[imsu]*$
root	string		—	length 1–1024
max_matches_per_file	integer		10	range 1–1000
limit	integer		—	range 1–1000
cursor	string		—	—
response_format	enum		—	concise returns only the high-signal fields; detailed (the shipped default) returns the full payload. Errors and safety warnings are never trimmed. When omitted, the server’s tools.defaults.responseFormat applies. One of: "concise", "detailed"
verbosity	enum		—	Legacy alias for response_format: terse = concise, full = detailed. One of: "full", "terse"

Output

Field	Type	Always present	Description
vault	string	yes	—
mode_used	enum	yes	One of: "regex"
items	object[]	yes	—
items[].path	string	yes	—
items[].snippet	string	yes	—
items[].line	number		—
items[].col	number		—
items[].match	string		—
total	number	yes	—
next_cursor	string		—

Related tools

Other tools in the search domain: query_datacore, search, search_and_read, search_dql, search_jsonlogic, search_omnisearch, search_semantic, search_text, search_vault.

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