Hex Documentation Search

Search Elixir package documentation. Prioritize local sources, fetch if needed.

Search Locations (in order)

1. Project deps: deps/<package>/lib/ (source with @moduledoc/@doc), deps/<package>/doc/ (HTML if generated)
2. Fetched docs cache: .hex-docs/docs/hexpm/<package>/<version>/
3. Fetched source cache: .hex-packages/<package>-<version>/
4. HexDocs API: Programmatic search (see below)
5. Web search: Last resort with site:hexdocs.pm

Fetching Locally

Determine version from mix.lock, mix.exs, or prompt user if ambiguous.

# Fetch documentation (stores in .hex-docs/)
HEX_HOME=.hex-docs mix hex.docs fetch <package> <version>

# Fetch source code (if docs insufficient or unavailable)
mix hex.package fetch <package> <version> --unpack --output .hex-packages/<package>-<version>

Mention adding .hex-docs/ and .hex-packages/ to .gitignore once per session when fetching occurs.

HexDocs Search API

Powered by Typesense at search.hexdocs.pm.

# Search within a specific package
curl -s "https://search.hexdocs.pm/?q=<query>&filter_by=package:=[<package>-<version>]" \
  | jq '.hits[].document | {title, doc, url}'

# Search across all packages
curl -s "https://search.hexdocs.pm/?q=<query>" \
  | jq '.hits[].document | {package, title, doc}'

Response fields:

• package: Package name
• title: Module/function name
• doc: Documentation text
• url: Path to append to https://hexdocs.pm

Version Resolution

# From mix.lock
grep '"<package>"' mix.lock | grep -oE '[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+'

# Latest from hex.pm
curl -s "https://hex.pm/api/packages/<package>" | jq -r '.releases[0].version'

Key Behaviors

• Prefer local/cached results (version matches project)
• Show real usage examples from project codebase when relevant
• Include file:line references for source code
• Prompt user before fetching external packages
• Source code @moduledoc/@doc often has more detail than HTML docs