FAQ

vs ripgrep (rg)?

ripgrep is faster and better for interactive search in terminals. aict grep is slower but returns structured XML/JSON with line numbers, byte offsets, language metadata, and context — all in one response. For AI agents that need to reason about search results, aict grep eliminates a parsing layer entirely.

vs eza / lsd?

eza and lsd are beautiful terminal replacements for humans. aict ls is for machines — the output is XML with absolute paths, MIME types, language tags, binary flags, and epoch timestamps. There is no colour code to strip, no column alignment to guess.

Why XML and not JSON by default?

XML is the default because:

• Attributes carry metadata without nesting — a <file size_bytes="2048" language="go"/> is 40 chars; the JSON equivalent is 60+ with mandatory quotes and colons.
• AI context windows are token-limited; denser encoding means more results per call.
• Structured errors (<error code="2" msg="no such file"/>) compose naturally into the parent element.

Pass --json any time you want JSON. The schema is identical.

Does it work on Windows?

Partially. ls, cat, stat, wc, find, diff, grep, head, tail, sort, uniq, cut, tr, checksums, realpath, basename, dirname, pwd, env all work. ps and df are Linux/macOS only (they read /proc and use syscall.Statfs).

Can I use it without AICT_XML=1?

Yes. Pass --xml, --json, or --plain per invocation. The env var is a convenience for shells configured for AI pipelines.