The latest articles on DEV Community by Srijan Shukla (@srijanshukla18). https://dev.to/srijanshukla18 https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F1576269%2F488a7c50-2f20-4488-b99c-e71fb09a3e31.jpeg https://dev.to/srijanshukla18 en Srijan Shukla Sat, 16 Aug 2025 13:21:52 +0000 https://dev.to/srijanshukla18/from-grep-to-ast-grep-building-xray-mcp-for-code-aware-ai-31m3 https://dev.to/srijanshukla18/from-grep-to-ast-grep-building-xray-mcp-for-code-aware-ai-31m3 <p>I enjoy coding with AI assistants, but they failed the moment I asked a structural question:</p> <blockquote> <p>“Show me everything that calls <code>authenticate()</code>."</p> </blockquote> <p>They guessed—because under the hood they were using plain text search.</p> <p>After experiments with grep scripts (too noisy), tree-sitter bindings (too fragile), and LSPs (too heavy), I found <strong>ast-grep</strong>. It offers syntax-aware search without the infrastructure weight.</p> <p><strong>XRAY MCP</strong> is my wrapper around ast-grep: a tiny server exposing <code>map</code>, <code>find</code>, and <code>impact</code> endpoints. An assistant can now map the repo, locate a symbol, and see its references before suggesting changes.</p> <p>The code is open source if you want to try the approach.</p> <p><a href="https://github.com/srijanshukla18/xray" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://github.com/srijanshukla18/xray</a></p> mcp ai programming vibecoding