Search stuck and never finishes
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Description
Describe the bug
I created a md to work around the issue, and it has the description
cat ~/.copilot/instructions/search-tool-workaround.instructions.md
Search / grep tool workaround
In this environment the built-in grep tool (and code-search tooling built on
it) can stall for minutes on the "Search" spinner, even though the underlying
ripgrep work completes in milliseconds. This is a tool-invocation-layer issue,
not a real search cost:
- Single-file ripgrep: ~2 ms
- Whole 70 GB / ~825k-file working tree: ~3.8 s
So the multi-minute "Search" hangs are NOT caused by ripgrep or repo size.
Guidance
- Prefer plain
grep/rgandview/cat/sedvia the bash tool for
searching file contents and reading files. These return in milliseconds. - Avoid the built-in
greptool here until the responsiveness bug is fixed. - Always scope searches to a specific path/file when possible
(e.g.grep -nE 'pattern' path/to/file).
Affected version
GitHub Copilot CLI 1.0.79
Steps to reproduce the behavior
everytime it needs to Search
Search "something" ....
which stuck forever
Expected behavior
No response
Additional context
No response
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start by reproducing the hang in GitHub Copilot CLI 1.0.79 using the built-in Search/grep tool, then compare it with the bash-based grep or rg commands described in ~/.copilot/instructions/search-tool-workaround.instructions.md. Trace the Search invocation layer rather than ripgrep performance. Done means searches complete instead of remaining on the Search spinner.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- shell
- Domain
- cli
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Active
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100