Need a way of making specific files/directories invisible

[ian-manaog]

Hi there, thanks for working on this project.

One suggestion I'd like to make is a method to set files invisible to code-assistant and whichever AI agent uses code-assistant as an MCP server.
The best way to describe this would be how .gitignore works, maybe add a parameter in a project in projects.json that includes a list of filepaths or directories that should be ignored. An example use case for this is when a developer would hold config files that may contain sensitive information. Assuming they store those files in a config folder in the project, we can just set /config to be excluded.

I'd like to work on this feature and contribute it to the project, but unfortunately, my Rust skills are inadequate compared to other languages. If you need to prioritize other features, that's okay too, I'll work on this and push a PR when I have time. Thanks again!

[stippi]

The .gitignore file is already implemented as a "solution" to this problem. Both the list_files and read_files tools should already respect it. You could confirm it by inspecting the output of the tools, but I will add some tests to make sure it really works.
In any case, there is currently no sandboxing that would prevent the agent from reading outside the project, or from reading hidden files when using the execute_command tool. And relative paths could in theory point outside the project, too. These things need to be addressed eventually.

[stippi]

Fixed by #31

The list_files tool already respected .gitignore files. This is effective when a .git folder is also present in the project root. Now, the read_files tool actively prevents reading git-ignored files (i.e. if the agent had guessed their presence), and the write_file tool will prevent clobbering git-ignored files.

[stippi]

I'd like to work on this feature and contribute it to the project, but unfortunately, my Rust skills are inadequate compared to other languages. If you need to prioritize other features, that's okay too, I'll work on this and push a PR when I have time. Thanks again!

Sorry for stealing the opportunity to contribute. I wanted to address this, since there was already a mechanism in place, just not implemented fully. Regarding Rust skills... this project is 99.9% coded by Claude 3.5 and 3.7 Sonnet. I just direct and keep everything together. I don't think what I'm doing qualifies as "Vibe Coding", but at least the actual code writing is almost 100% Claude. Mostly I use code-assistant in MCP mode for this, but sometimes also the agent mode or Zed's new agent panel. I'm able to read Rust well enough and sometimes I can make a few tweaks here and there. Feel free to do the same. :-)