Bloop

What is Bloop?

Bloop is an open-source, AI-powered code assistant built to help developers navigate and understand their codebases. Its core feature is natural language search: you can ask questions about your code in plain English and find what you need quickly. It also identifies internal libraries and common patterns, showing how a codebase fits together and helping you avoid unnecessary dependencies. For more specific searches, Bloop supports regex matching and precise code navigation.

Bloop works with more than 20 programming languages. Because it is open-source, you can self-host it and use it for free without limits.

A standout use case is legacy modernization. Bloop helps convert COBOL code to Java and can turn complex code into something easier for humans to read. It is designed to keep your code safe and prevent it from freezing during these large-scale changes.

Who created Bloop?

Bloop was created by a company backed by Combinator. Specific founder and company details were not disclosed. The tool’s focus is making code navigation and comprehension more accessible.

What is Bloop used for?

• Modernizing legacy code
• Converting COBOL to Java
• Making complex code easier to read
• Explaining a codebase in everyday language
• Automatic code conversion
• Verifying that code behaves as expected
• Providing examples and definitions for functions
• Supporting continuous delivery pipelines
• Searching code with natural language queries
• Regex matching for precise searches
• Searching across multiple repositories at once
• Coding offline
• Making changes to a codebase without causing issues

Who is Bloop for?

Bloop is aimed at anyone who works with code, including:

• Developers and programmers
• COBOL developers
• Software engineers
• IT specialists
• Managers overseeing legacy code

Getting started with Bloop

Install Bloop on a compatible operating system, then initialize it with configurations suited to your coding environment. From there, use natural language search to explore your code, rely on pattern and library detection to understand how components fit together, and use regex matching when you need to pinpoint exact sections. For legacy projects, Bloop can help you understand, write, and update old code, including automatic conversion from COBOL to Java.