GNO vs grep/ripgrep

A comparison of GNO with traditional text search tools like grep and ripgrep (rg).

grep and ripgrep are excellent for exact pattern matching in code. GNO adds semantic understanding for knowledge-base search.

Quick Summary

Aspect	GNO	grep/rg
Best for	Knowledge base, documents	Code search, exact patterns
Unique strength	Find concepts, not just strings	Fast regex, pipeline-friendly
Learning curve	Minutes	Minutes (regex mastery takes longer)

Feature Comparison

Feature	GNO	grep/rg
Search Type	Semantic + keyword	Keyword/regex only
“Find concept”	✓ Vector similarity	✗ Must know exact terms
PDF/DOCX	✓ Native	✗ Text only
Ranking	Relevance-scored	Line matches
AI Integration	MCP, Skills, RAG	Manual piping
Index	Persistent, incremental	None (scan every time)
Speed (large corpus)	Fast (indexed)	Slow (full scan)
Regex	Basic patterns	Full regex power
Pipeline	JSON output	Native stdin/stdout

Planned Features

Feature	GNO	grep/rg
Web UI	🔜 gno serve	✗
Tab Completion	🔜 Shell integration	✓ Built-in

The Key Difference

grep finds strings. GNO finds meaning.

# grep: must know exact terms
grep -r "authentication" ./docs
grep -r "auth" ./docs
grep -r "login" ./docs
grep -r "sign in" ./docs

# GNO: finds all related concepts
gno query "how does authentication work"

GNO’s semantic search understands that “authentication”, “login”, “sign in”, and “auth” are related concepts.

When to Use GNO

Concept search: You’re looking for ideas, not exact strings.

# Find discussions about error handling approaches
gno query "how to handle errors gracefully"

# Find anything related to performance optimization
gno query "making the app faster"

Document formats: You have PDFs, Word docs, spreadsheets.

# Search across all your documents
gno init ~/Documents --name docs
gno index
gno query "Q4 budget projections"

AI workflows: You want AI agents to search your knowledge base.

# Let Claude search your docs
gno mcp install --target claude

# Get AI-generated answers
gno ask "what is our deployment process" --answer

Knowledge base: You’re building a searchable second brain.

# Index notes, papers, meeting transcripts
gno init ~/notes --name notes
gno query "what did we decide about the API redesign"

When to Use grep/ripgrep

Exact patterns: You know the exact string or regex.

# Find all TODO comments
rg "TODO:" --type rust

# Find function definitions
rg "^func \w+" --type go

Code search: Searching source code for symbols and patterns.

# Find all uses of a function
rg "handleError\(" src/

# Find import statements
rg "^import.*from" --type ts

Pipeline scripts: Chaining tools in shell pipelines.

# Count occurrences per file
rg -c "error" | sort -t: -k2 -rn

# Extract and process matches
rg -o "v\d+\.\d+\.\d+" | sort -u

One-off queries: Quick searches where indexing isn’t worth it.

# Quick check in a small directory
rg "config" ./settings/

Complementary Usage

Use both tools together:

# Use GNO for semantic search across docs
gno query "authentication best practices"

# Use rg for exact code search
rg "AuthProvider" src/

# Use GNO for AI-powered answers
gno ask "how do we authenticate users" --answer

Getting Started with GNO

If you’re comfortable with grep/ripgrep, GNO is easy to add:

# Install
bun install -g @gmickel/gno

# Initialize and index
gno init ~/notes --name notes
gno index

# Search semantically
gno query "your search query"

# Or use hybrid mode (semantic + keyword)
gno query "your search query" --mode hybrid

Both tools have their place. grep/ripgrep excels at exact pattern matching in code. GNO excels at finding concepts in documents and knowledge bases.