symbols: Skill for Codex

Language Server Navigation

Use this skill when the codebase already has a relevant language server, or when the task should check that first. The goal is to use the current Language Servers tool surface deliberately instead of falling back to grep-driven workflows too early.

For a compact tool-selection cheat sheet, read references/tool-selection.md.

Workflow

1. Check language-servers://profiles for a matching profile.
   • If there is no suitable profile, use the install-language-server skill.
2. Start with the narrowest LSP-backed tool that answers the question.
   • outline for file structure and symbol locations
   • inspect for symbol details and docs
   • references for usages
   • rename for semantic renames
   • diagnostics for compile or type errors
   • completion for API discovery at a point
   • search when the server supports language-aware search
3. Use a real file path and precise line and character coordinates.
   • If the user did not provide coordinates, use outline first to find them.
4. Treat file-backed tool calls as stateful.
   • They can lazily start a dormant session.
   • They can change the runtime state you see in the resources.
5. If results look wrong, inspect:
   • language-servers://profiles/{name}
   • language-servers://profiles/{name}/logs
   • then use reload only if the config changed

Tool Choice Rules

• Prefer rename over grep-based renames when a matching LSP exists.
• Prefer references over text search for call sites or symbol usage.
• Prefer inspect over opening arbitrary files when you need docs, types, or declaration context.
• Use search only when the server and current indexing state can support it.
• Use plain text tools only when there is no working LSP profile or when the task is explicitly text-based.

Known Runtime Behaviors

• not_started after reload is normal. The first matching file-backed tool call should start the profile.
• Search quality varies by server. TypeScript 7's native server does not normally need a preload anchor; the legacy typescript-language-server wrapper may still benefit from bounded, glob-based preload_files entries.
• Logs are best-effort. A running server may still have no window-log messages.
• Resources are the read surface. Use them for state and log inspection before guessing.