File Tree Context

Save your project's file tree into a file between <FileTree> tags on save. Useful for providing context to AI IDEs like Cursor (e.g., in .cursorrules).

Overview

File Tree Context is a Visual Studio Code extension that automatically generates a textual representation of your project's file tree. This file tree is inserted between <FileTree> tags in a specified target file whenever you save a file in the workspace.

By providing a snapshot of your project structure, this extension can enhance the context available to AI tools and IDEs that utilize such information for code suggestions, refactoring, or other intelligent features.

Features

• Automatically updates your project's file tree on file save.
• Inserts the file tree between customizable <FileTree> tags in a target file.
• Supports ignore patterns using .gitignore or custom ignore files.
• Customizable via a configuration file (filetreecontext.config.json).

Installation

1. Install the extension from the Visual Studio Code Marketplace: File Tree Context

2. Reload or restart Visual Studio Code to activate the extension.

Usage

Configuration

To use File Tree Context, you need to add a configuration file named filetreecontext.config.json to the root of your project. This file tells the extension when to activate and how to behave.

Example filetreecontext.config.json:

{
  "ignoreFiles": [".gitignore", ".myignore"],
  "targetFile": ".cursorrules"
}

• ignoreFiles (optional): An array of file names containing ignore patterns. The extension will use these patterns to exclude files or directories from the generated file tree. Defaults to [".gitignore"] if not specified.
• targetFile (required): The file where the extension will insert the <FileTree> tags and the generated file tree.

How It Works

1. Activation: The extension activates when it detects the filetreecontext.config.json file in the root of your project.

2. File Save Event: Every time you save a file in the workspace, the extension triggers the file tree update process.

3. Generating the File Tree:

   • Reads the ignore patterns from the files specified in ignoreFiles.
   • Scans your project directory, excluding files and directories that match the ignore patterns.
   • Creates a textual representation of the file tree.

4. Updating the Target File:

   • Inserts the generated file tree between <FileTree> and </FileTree> tags in the targetFile.
   • If the targetFile doesn't exist, it creates it with the file tree between the tags.

Example

Given the following project structure:

my-project/
├── filetreecontext.config.json
├── .gitignore
├── src/
│   ├── index.js
│   └── utils.js
├── README.md
└── package.json

With .gitignore content:

node_modules/

And filetreecontext.config.json:

{
  "ignoreFiles": [".gitignore"],
  "targetFile": ".cursorrules"
}

After saving a file, the .cursorrules file will look like:

<FileTree>
├── filetreecontext.config.json
├── src
│   ├── index.js
│   └── utils.js
├── README.md
└── package.json
</FileTree>

Notes

• The extension only updates the file tree on file save events.
• Hidden files and directories (those starting with .) are ignored by default.
• If the <FileTree> tags are not present in the targetFile, the extension will add them and insert the file tree between them.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please submit issues and pull requests to the GitHub repository (link to be updated upon repository creation).

License

This project is MIT Licensed.

Acknowledgments

• Inspired by the need to provide context to AI-assisted IDEs like Cursor.
• Uses the ignore library for handling ignore patterns.