Project Structure for AI

A Visual Studio Code extension that automatically maintains a structured overview of your project's files and directories. It helps AI assistants like GitHub Copilot understand your project context when files aren't open, improving their suggestions and assistance.

Features

• Keeps an up-to-date listing of all files in your project
• Works in two modes: Manual or Auto
• Configurable exclusion of directories and files
• Status bar controls for easy mode switching and manual updates
• Detects and documents file relationships (imports/exports)
• Framework-specific route detection for popular web frameworks
• Performance optimizations for large projects

Installation

1. Open VS Code
2. Press Ctrl+Shift+X to open the Extensions view
3. Search for "Project Structure"
4. Click Install

Usage

Once installed, the extension will create a .vscode/project-structure.md file in your workspace that contains a hierarchical listing of all files and folders in your project.

Status Bar Controls

The extension adds two items to the status bar:

• Project Structure: Manual/Auto - Shows the current mode. Click to toggle between Manual and Auto modes.
• Refresh Icon - Click to manually update the file listing (only visible in Manual mode).

Modes

• Manual Mode: The file listing is only updated when you manually trigger an update
• Auto Mode: The file listing is automatically updated whenever files are added, deleted, or changed

Commands

Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) and type:

• Project Structure: Toggle State - Switch between Manual and Auto modes
• Project Structure: Update Now - Update the file listing immediately
• Project Structure: Clear Cache - Clear the cached file relationships data

Configuration

You can configure the extension via the VS Code settings:

VS Code Settings UI:

1. Open Settings (Ctrl+, or File > Preferences > Settings)
2. Search for "Project Structure"
3. Edit the settings to customize the behavior

Framework Detection

The extension can detect routes and structure for popular web frameworks:

"projectStructure.detectFrameworks": {
  "express": true,
  "react": true, 
  "next": true,
  "vue": true,
  "nestjs": true
}

Advanced Configuration

You can also configure these settings in your settings.json:

1. Open settings.json (Ctrl+Shift+P > "Preferences: Open Settings (JSON)")
2. Add or edit:

"projectStructure.excludeDirectories": [
  ".git",
  "node_modules",
  "dist",
  "bin"
],
"projectStructure.excludeFiles": [
  "*.vsix",
  "*.log",
  "*.zip",
  "package-lock.json"
],
"projectStructure.enableLogging": true,
"projectStructure.includeRelationships": true,
"projectStructure.maxFileSize": 2048,
"projectStructure.detectFrameworks": {
  "express": true,
  "react": true,
  "next": true,
  "vue": false,
  "nestjs": true
}

You can set different exclusions per project by adding them to settings.json in a workspace After updating the settings, they take effect immediately for new file operations and on the next update of the file listing.

Make Copilot aware of the file

Currently, GitHub Copilot doesn't have a built-in way to automatically attach specific files to every query's context. However, there are some workarounds you could try:

Create a .github/copilot-instructions.md file in your repository.

Add the following instruction to the file:

Always refer to the .vscode/project-structure.md file for the most up-to-date project structure before suggesting file creations or modifications.

Ensure that custom instructions are enabled in your Copilot settings. With this setup, Copilot will be instructed to check the project-structure.md before making suggestions about file creation or modification, helping it make more informed decisions about your project structure.

Other approaches

1. Keep the Project Structure document open

   • Split your editor and keep the generated project-structure.md open as you work
   • Copilot tends to prioritize open files in its context window

2. Use @file references in comments

   // See project structure in .vscode/project-structure.md
   

3. Use workspace-level prompts

   • In VS Code with Copilot Chat:

   /workspace Use .vscode/project-structure.md as context for project structure
   
   

Known Issues

None...yet.

Release Notes

2.0.0

Added ability to list routes for various API systems. Added settings to control which systems to watch for. Added ability to not process files above a certain size.

First release.

1.0.0

Initial release of Project Structure for AI.