Ask HN: Navigating Source Code (especially on large projects)

#1

Post by thekey » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 1:24 PM UTC

- How much time you spend with navigating source code? - How annoyed you are about that? - What are your strategies to mitigate? - Are there tools you using? - What about polyglot navigation? - How you onboard other people / point them to right locations - with context?

Re: Ask HN: Navigating Source Code (especially on large projects)

#2

Post by kentich » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 11:06 PM UTC

I use Code Mind Map - a Visual Studio / VS Code extension that allows you to add nodes linked to code and jump directly to the linked code on a click. I built it for myself. You can find it at https://codemindmap.com

Re: Ask HN: Navigating Source Code (especially on large projects)

#3

Post by t0duf0du » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 4:37 AM UTC

https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=945136

https://docs.devin.ai/work-with-devin/deepwiki

Re: Ask HN: Navigating Source Code (especially on large projects)

#4

Post by welcomezhangjun » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 7:15 AM UTC

[flagged]

Re: Ask HN: Navigating Source Code (especially on large projects)

#5

Post by stevekemp » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 2:55 PM UTC

LSP services make it trivial to jump to definitions, as well as local cross-references and filesystem views it's just not something that's a concern.

Could I scroll around 5ms faster with a different UI? Probably, but it wouldn't change my habits.

I use grep, emacs, and I don't feel like I have anything that needs mitigation.

Re: Ask HN: Navigating Source Code (especially on large projects)

#6

Post by firespark » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 9:11 PM UTC

[flagged]