explore searches and reads across the whole project and answers with exact file paths. It has no edit or write tool, so there is nothing for it to change.
@explore Find every place this repo reads process.env.DATABASE_URL and summarize the pattern.
Searched the project for DATABASE_URL3 matches
Read src/config/env.ts, src/lib/db.ts and docker-compose.yml
It is read once, in src/config/env.ts.
The value is validated there and passed down as a typed config object. db.ts imports the config instead of reading process.env again.
Read only · 3 files read, 0 changed
Describe a task or ask a question
src/config/env.ts:6the read
db: required(process.env.DATABASE_URL),
src/lib/db.ts:3
import { config } from "../config/env"
docker-compose.yml:12
DATABASE_URL: postgres://db:5432/app
to understand codeAnyone who needs a confident answer about code they did not write, before touching any of it.
Where a flow starts, what it calls and what pattern the neighbouring files follow.
Where does this actually happen, answered before anyone edits a line.
A read-only agent that cannot edit or write, so asking costs nothing to undo.
Searching is the easy part. These four things make the answer worth acting on.
explore
No edit or write tool exists for it, so there is nothing to approve.
What explore can and cannot do
explore can search, glob, read and fetch. It has no edit or write tool at all, by construction and not by policy, so asking a question can never leave a side effect behind.
db: required(process.env.DATABASE_URL)import { config } from "../config/env"DATABASE_URL: postgres://db:5432/appAn answer you can follow to the line
You get an explanation and the places it came from, so you can open each file and check it instead of trusting a summary.
Chat window
db.ts
explore searched
db.ts
env.ts
compose.yml
api/users.ts
api/orders.ts
scripts/seed.ts
One pasted file versus the repo
A chat window answers from the snippet you gave it. explore searches the project, so the call site three folders away is part of the answer.
Quick
Where is DATABASE_URL read?
One file, answered in a line
Thorough
Map every config value and who reads it
A wider sweep, with every path
You say how hard it should look
Ask for a quick lookup and get a fast answer, or ask it to be thorough and it sweeps a wider part of an unfamiliar subsystem.
You open a dozen files by hand, hold the pattern in your head across all of them, and hope you did not miss the one call site that matters.
Terminal
$grep -rn DATABASE_URL src/
$open src/config/env.ts
$open src/lib/db.ts
$open docker-compose.yml
A dozen files open to hold one pattern in your head
explore does that search and reports back in one answer, with no risk of a side effect, because it has no tool that could change anything.
@explore Find every place this repo reads DATABASE_URL
Searched the project and read 3 files
explore
explore · Search · Read · Fetch · Write
Read-only by construction: it greps, globs, reads and fetches across the project, with no edit or write tool available to it at all.
general
general · Read · Plan · Write diff
If the explanation shows a change is needed, hand it to general in the same conversation. It writes the diff behind the usual approval gate.
Most questions about code are a search plus a few files read in the right order. explore does both and hands back an explanation with the paths.
Explorer
The @-mention sends it to explore, which cannot edit or write
@explore Find every place this repo reads process.env.DATABASE_URL and summarize the pattern.
Explorer
@explore Find every place this repo reads process.env.DATABASE_URL and summarize the pattern.
Searched for DATABASE_URL3 matches
Read src/config/env.ts
Read src/lib/db.ts and docker-compose.yml
Summarised the pattern, changed nothing
Describe a task or ask a question
Explorer
Read only. Nothing was changed.
Describe a task or ask a question
Explorer
Read only. Nothing was changed.
Answered · 3 files read, 0 changed
Describe a task or ask a question
Explorer
The @-mention sends it to explore, which cannot edit or write
@explore Find every place this repo reads process.env.DATABASE_URL and summarize the pattern.
Where understanding a repo usually goes wrong, and how a read-only search closes each gap.
Who reads the URLWith ML.ai
env.tsread once, passed down
db.tsuses typed config
compose.ymlsets the value
The answer is spread across a config module, a client and a deploy file, and reading them one at a time loses the thread.
How handles it
explore reads them together and reports the one pattern that connects them, with each file named.
Matches in the repoWith ML.ai
env.ts:6the one real read
db.ts:3imports typed config
README.mddocumentation only
Searching for a name returns every mention, including comments and tests, with no sense of which one matters.
How handles it
It reads the matches in context and tells you which ones are real reads and which are only mentions.
Files it changedWith ML.ai
env.tsread only
db.tsread only
docker-compose.ymlread only
Handing a question to a tool that can also edit leaves you wondering what else it touched while it looked.
How handles it
explore has no write surface, so there is nothing to review and nothing to undo after it answers.
The real edges of what explore can do here, stated plainly instead of left for you to discover.
explore cannot make the change it just described, even if you ask mid-answer. Hand the actual edit to general.
explore answers in a single turn and hands control back to you. A vague question gets a best-effort search, so say what you are looking for.
A database, a running service or infrastructure outside the workspace is invisible to it.
Root cause in session.ts
The store returns null before the session write finishes, so the middleware rejects a valid token.
Give ML.ai a failing test, an error message, or a stack trace and it reads the execution path, finds the actual cause, and proposes a fix as a diff you approve.
Plan · move off the .ini loader
Nothing edited until you hand it to general
explore maps what the old code does today, architect plans the path, and general carries it out as small reviewable diffs.
No. It has no edit or write tool available to it at all, by construction and not by policy. There is nothing for a permission prompt to gate.
The default agent (general) can edit and run commands, so a look-up request to it still carries the blast radius of a tool that could act. explore is the same search with no write surface.
Yes. Say how hard it should look: quick for a single targeted lookup, or thorough for a wider sweep across an unfamiliar subsystem.
No. explore works inside the project only, so a database or running service outside the repo is invisible to it.
Hand it to general in the same conversation. The edit lands as a diff behind the Allow, Always or Deny prompt, like any other change.
today, or talk to us about what is nextInstall the editor agent on your own machine, or book a call to talk through your team’s workloads
