RepoNav reorganizes flat search results into a file-centered scaffold so agents stop picking the wrong sibling function

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arXiv 2609.08355 (submitted 2026-09-08) argues the failure mode in repo-level localization is not finding the right file but distinguishing the target function from semantically similar siblings inside it, because retrieval returns flat lists of isolated snippets. RepoNav is a post-retrieval interface that presents compact structural cues and candidate targets, guiding on-demand file-structure browsing; it improves function-level localization on LocBench across models and narrows the file-to-function gap. Ablations attribute the gain to structured organization rather than to simply exposing more file structure, which is the result that matters if you are deciding whether to bolt an AST view onto your own retrieval.