Sourcegraph API
Universal code search and intelligence API that enables cross-repository symbol navigation, code search, and powers the Cody AI coding assistant.
Score Breakdown
⚙ Agent Friendliness
🔒 Security
HTTPS enforced. Token scoping supported. SOC2 certified for cloud offering. Self-hosted deployments inherit the security posture of the operator. Open source codebase allows audit.
⚡ Reliability
Best When
An agent needs to search, navigate, or understand code across many repositories, especially in large engineering organizations.
Avoid When
Your codebase is small and hosted on a single platform with adequate native search.
Use Cases
- • Cross-repository code search at scale for agents doing codebase analysis
- • Symbol and definition lookup across monorepos and polyrepos
- • Finding all usages of a function or type across thousands of repositories
- • Powering AI coding assistants with precise code context (Cody)
- • Code intelligence integrations for editors and CI/CD pipelines
Not For
- • Simple single-repository search (GitHub native search is sufficient)
- • Teams that cannot host or pay for a Sourcegraph instance
- • Real-time code execution or sandboxing
Interface
Authentication
Personal access tokens for individual users; OAuth apps for integrations. Site admins can configure SAML/OIDC SSO. Token-based auth is the standard path for agent use.
Pricing
Open source Sourcegraph can be self-hosted for free. Cloud plans have a free tier. Enterprise pricing requires a contract.
Agent Metadata
Known Gotchas
- ⚠ GraphQL query complexity limits can be hit by agents constructing deep or broad queries; use query cost analysis
- ⚠ Self-hosted instances may be behind firewalls; agents must be configured for the correct base URL per deployment
- ⚠ Repository syncing lag means recently pushed code may not be indexed immediately
- ⚠ Cody API is separate from the core Sourcegraph GraphQL API with different auth paths
- ⚠ No REST API — agents must work with GraphQL, increasing query construction complexity
Alternatives
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Scores are editorial opinions as of 2026-03-06.