How to Use Phind

Phind is an AI search engine built for developers — it answers technical questions with web-grounded citations and a code-tuned model of its own.

Phind combines live web search with a custom fine-tuned LLM (Phind-70B, based on Llama architectures) to answer programming questions. Unlike general chatbots, it cites the sources it pulled from and formats code blocks with syntax highlighting, making it closer to a “Stack Overflow that writes the answer for you.”

What it is

Phind runs a search pipeline that retrieves relevant pages (docs, GitHub issues, blog posts) and feeds them to its model as grounding context. You pick between Phind-70B (fast, default) and Pro models like Claude Sonnet or GPT. It offers a web UI, a VS Code extension, and API access for Pro users.

Install / sign up

# Web
open https://www.phind.com

# VS Code
code --install-extension Phind.phind

# Pro plan (unlocks bigger models & higher limits)
# https://www.phind.com/plans  ($20/mo)

First session

Type a technical question into the search bar. Phind shows a streamed answer with inline citation chips; click any chip to open the source page. Follow-up questions keep the same search thread.

$ # Example prompt
> How do I stream server-sent events from FastAPI to a React client?
# Phind returns code for both sides + 6 citation chips

Everyday workflows

• 1. Paste an error message — Phind searches issue trackers and returns the fix with the closest matching GitHub thread.
• 2. Use “Pair Programmer” mode in the VS Code extension to edit files with grounded suggestions.
• 3. Save threads to a Workspace so your team can browse previously answered questions.

Gotchas and tips

Phind’s strength is freshness — it will often beat stock ChatGPT on brand-new library versions because it actually reads the current docs page. Its weakness is long reasoning chains; for multi-file refactors you’re better off in a proper coding agent.

The free tier caps daily Pro-model uses but keeps Phind-70B unlimited. Turn off “Concise answers” in settings if you want more explanation alongside the code.

Who it’s for

Developers who Google dozens of times a day and would rather ask a question once and get a cited, code-first answer.