ast-grep, short for Abstract Syntax Tree Grep, is a versatile and powerful tool designed for conducting code searching, linting, and rewriting tasks on a large scale. It’s like having a hybrid of grep, eslint (for JavaScript), and codemod, but with the capability to handle multiple programming languages seamlessly. At its core, ast-grep operates by parsing source code into abstract syntax trees (ASTs), which represent the structure of the code in a hierarchical manner.