Use Case: Finding Every Callout to an External API in Seconds with Kodelens

Your heart sinks. An email just landed in your inbox from "StripePay," your company's primary payment processor. The subject line: "Critical API Update: Breaking Changes Required Within Two Weeks."

A project manager immediately turns to you and asks the dreaded question: "Can you give me a list of every single place we call the StripePay API? We need to know the full scope of this change, and we can't afford to miss anything."

This is not a simple question. This is a high-stakes scavenger hunt. The callouts could be scattered across dozens of Apex classes. They might be hidden inside generic helper methods with vague names. Missing even one could lead to catastrophic payment failures in production.

Manually auditing all your API callouts is slow, risky, and prone to human error. This article will show you how to turn this multi-day, high-stress task into a 30-second, confident search using Kodelens.

The Manual Audit: A Recipe for Disaster

Before we see the solution, let's walk through the painful "old way" of tackling this problem. Does this process feel familiar?

Step 1: The Obvious Keyword Search

You start by opening VS Code's global search and typing the API's base URL, like "api.stripepay.com". This finds the easy ones, the direct callouts where the URL is hard-coded. You feel a brief moment of progress.

Step 2: The Wrapper Method Hunt

Your search also reveals a class named PaymentUtils.cls that seems to handle some of the logic. Now you have a new problem: you have to perform a second search to find every place that PaymentUtils is used throughout the entire codebase.

Step 3: The Dynamic URL Problem

As you dig deeper, you discover a nightmare scenario. Some older callouts don't use a static string at all. They construct the URL dynamically from values stored in a Custom Setting or Custom Metadata. Your keyword search for the URL is now completely useless for these instances.

After a full day of this, you have a messy spreadsheet. You think you've found everything. But you have that nagging feeling in the back of your mind that you missed something. You have low confidence, high anxiety, and a deadline that is now one day closer.

The Kodelens Way: A 30-Second Search

Now, let's rewind and do this again, but this time with Kodelens installed.

Step 1: Open the Kodelens search panel in VS Code.

Step 2: Ask a plain English question.

Instead of guessing keywords, you type a question that describes your intent:

"Show me all HTTP callouts to the StripePay API"

Or, if you want to be even broader, you could ask:

"Where do we handle payment processing?"

Step 3: Get an Instant, Complete Answer.

Before you've even finished typing, Kodelens presents a clean, accurate list of every relevant piece of code.

• It finds the direct callouts where the URL is obvious.
• It finds the calls hidden inside PaymentUtils.cls because it understands that this method is semantically related to payment processing.
• It even finds the dynamic callouts because it analyzes the context of the code—seeing that a URL is being constructed and then used in an HttpRequest—not just matching static text.

The entire audit is done. It took 30 seconds. The result is complete, and your confidence is 100%.

Why This Works: Beyond the Keyword

This isn't magic; it's just a better way to search. Kodelens works because it's not just matching text.

• Context over Text: Kodelens understands that a method named executeBillingCallout, which constructs a URL from a custom setting and then performs an HttpRequest, is, in fact, a "callout to the StripePay API," even if the words "StripePay" never appear in the method itself.
• Conceptual Understanding: When Kodelens indexes your code, it builds a conceptual map. It learns which classes and methods are related to "payments," "billing," and "integrations." This is why a broad, intent-based question like "show me payment logic" works so effectively.

Conclusion: From Anxiety to Action

The critical task of auditing all your API callouts is transformed from a multi-day, high-anxiety archeological dig into a quick, confident action item. You can now spend your time actually fixing the code, not just trying to find it.

And this principle applies to far more than just API callouts. The next time you're asked one of these questions, imagine just typing it into a search bar:

• "Find all DML operations on the Contact object."
• "Show me where user permissions are checked."
• "Where is the logic for calculating shipping territories?"

Stop hunting and start doing. Install Kodelens from the VS Code Marketplace and see how quickly you can get real answers about your own codebase. Your first search will show you the power of working with confidence.