Is it possible to provide an entire directory as "context?

[kvenn]

I write a lot of docs and it would be ideal if it automatically took into consideration all my other documents as it provides suggestions.

It should still use the current file as the most important, but it should draw from all my other documents to even suggest other page names to link to, format similarly, etc.

Does that make sense?

For context, this is how GitHub Copilot works. It knows about all my other classes and their functionality and knows to write code like the rest of the code base (when possible)

[j0rd1smit]

Your proposal makes sense, however this feature is quit complex.

• Finding which files are relevant is slightly complex. You can do it in multiple ways, such as including everything in the current folder or all files linked to the file one degree away, etc.
• The context quickly becomes larger. So how do we decide what to include and what to ignore?
• How do we balance the large context versus generation speed versus inference costs?
• The current implementation implicitly assumes a single file as input. So we need to decide how to refactor the plugin to fit this in.
• All the prompts and few-shot examples assume a single file as input. We need to create many more examples with multiple files that are good examples.

All this sounds like a lot of work. This is a hobby project next to my main job, so I don't think I have time for such a major feature.

[kvenn]

That makes total sense, and I completely understand if this isn't something you'll get to.

I think there are a handful of compromises you could make that would simplify implementation (if you or others found value in the functionality). Here's the MVP I could see based on the complexity concerns

• An input field in settings with a path to a directory
• Upon selection, it reads in the files and comes up with a word count (or token count, if such a utility exists in the repo)
  • As part of this process, it could store off these files as a flattened string with dividers indicating the files (<filename>---)
• If shows a <words found count> out of <maxPrefixCharLimit> indicating how close to your context window size you are
• When generating the context it will first prioritize reading in the current file
  • If there is space left, it provides the remaining free characters to the Directory Context (just starting from top to bottom), just substringing the directory context.
  • You'd include in the prompt "Below are files to include as context. They represent examples of the preferred writing style. They are separate entities to this document and may be unrelated. Use this as inspiration for formatting. If you deem any of these files as related to the current context, you may reference these files with [[<filename>]]"
• Then a line in the prompt indicating the current context is more important.

I imagine the prompt engineering will be the hardest part, and I could see that taking a lot of time to get right. I've seen other plugins allow you to include your own prompt which might help forward that difficulty onto the consumer.

Anyways, just an idea! Thanks for hearing me out and thanks for a solid plugin.