edit

Safe file editing with literal matching, dry-run by default, and tree-sitter syntax validation.

Usage

prx edit [options] <file> --find <text> --replace <text>

Options

Examples

# Preview a change (dry-run — default)
prx edit src/auth.ts --find "old_api()" --replace "new_api()"

# Apply the change
prx edit src/auth.ts --find "old_api()" --replace "new_api()" --apply

# Regex mode
prx edit src/auth.ts --find "TODO.*" --replace "" --regex

# Scope to a specific function
prx edit src/auth.ts --find "x" --replace "y" --in-function "handleLogin"

Dry-run output shows what would change before anything is written:

{
  "data": {
    "applied": false,
    "changes": [
      {
        "line": 42,
        "before": "    return old_api(result);",
        "after": "    return new_api(result);"
      }
    ],
    "total_changes": 1
  }
}

Dry-run by default

prx edit never writes to disk unless you pass --apply. This lets you preview every change before committing it. The dry-run output shows exactly which lines would change and what they’d look like after.

Syntax validation

After applying a change, prx validates the result with tree-sitter. If the edit produces a syntax error, the change is rejected and the original file is left intact.

Tips

• Always run without --apply first to see what will change.
• Use --in-function to scope edits when the same string appears in multiple places but you only want to change it in one function.
• For multi-file renames, use prx batch to send multiple edit commands in one call.
• If you need to make the same change across many files, prx batch with a JSONL file of edit commands is more efficient than running prx edit in a loop.

See also: diff, batch