The @ file search feature fails to find some files in a very large or complex project

[Naituw]

App Version

3.23.10

API Provider

OpenAI

Model Used

N/A

Roo Code Task Links (Optional)

No response

🔁 Steps to Reproduce

1. Prepare a large or complex project, open it with VSCode
   • Large: Contains over 10,000 files
   • Complex: Contains multiple subprojects, each project are ignored in the main repo's .gitignore file
2. Disable VSCode's search.useIgnoreFiles setting
3. Try to use '@' file picker in the RooCode input box
4. Attempt to search for files that exist in the project
5. Notice that many files are not found, while VSCode's "Quick Open" panel is able to find them

Some background info:
The project I'm working on is a very large one with over 140,000 source files, and is a monorepo with multiple sub-repositories managed by custom tools/scripts, so each sub-repo path are ignored in the main repo's .gitignore file.

The @ file search feature barely works in this project, while VSCode's quick open panel works fine with search.useIgnoreFiles disabled.

💥 Outcome Summary

Expected @ file search can find any file in the project like VSCode's quick open picker, but it fails to find many files.

📄 Relevant Logs or Errors (Optional)

[dosubot]

Hi @Naituw! I'm Dosu and I’m helping the Roo-Code team.

The main reason the '@' file search in Roo Code isn't finding all files in your large monorepo is that it strictly respects .gitignore and .rooignore patterns for indexing and searching. If your sub-repo paths are listed in the main repo's .gitignore, Roo Code will not index or search those files—even if VSCode's search.useIgnoreFiles is disabled. This is different from VSCode's Quick Open, which can be configured to ignore or include files independently of .gitignore settings.

Other factors that can limit Roo Code's file search include a hard cap of 300 results per search, performance slowdowns in very large codebases, and automatic exclusion of files over 1MB, binaries, and images. Roo Code's file search is optimized for text-based files and Tree-sitter supported languages, so unsupported file types may also be missed docs docs docs.

To improve coverage, you can temporarily remove or adjust ignore patterns in your .gitignore and .rooignore files to allow Roo Code to index the files you need. After indexing, you can restore your original ignore settings. If that's not practical, consider splitting your workspace or restructuring ignore files to better match your search needs. There isn't a documented way to make Roo Code ignore .gitignore like VSCode can.

Let me know if you want more details on ignore file syntax or strategies for large monorepos.

To reply, just mention @dosu.

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[roomote]

I am working on this issue to improve the @ file search functionality for large and complex projects. I will investigate the file indexing and search logic to ensure it can find files even when they are in paths listed in .gitignore, similar to how VSCode's Quick Open works when search.useIgnoreFiles is disabled.

[roomote]

✅ Issue Fixed

I've successfully implemented a solution for the @ file search not finding files in ignored directories when VSCode's search.useIgnoreFiles setting is disabled.

🔧 Solution Summary

Root Cause: Roo Code's file search was always respecting .gitignore files regardless of VSCode's search.useIgnoreFiles setting, causing files in ignored directories to be excluded from search results even when users had explicitly disabled ignore file usage.

Fix: Modified the file search functionality to integrate with VSCode's configuration system and conditionally adjust ripgrep behavior:

1. Updated executeRipgrepForFiles function in src/services/search/file-search.ts:

   • Added respectIgnoreFiles parameter (default: true for backward compatibility)
   • Conditionally adds --no-ignore-vcs flag to ripgrep when respectIgnoreFiles is false

2. Enhanced searchWorkspaceFiles function:

   • Reads VSCode's search.useIgnoreFiles setting using vscode.workspace.getConfiguration
   • Passes the setting to executeRipgrepForFiles to control ignore file behavior

3. Comprehensive test coverage:

   • Added unit tests covering both enabled and disabled search.useIgnoreFiles scenarios
   • Verified proper ripgrep command generation with and without --no-ignore-vcs flag

🧪 Testing

• ✅ All existing tests pass
• ✅ New comprehensive test suite added
• ✅ All CI checks pass (compile, unit tests, integration tests, linting)

📋 Pull Request

PR #5722: #5722

The implementation is now ready for review and maintains full backward compatibility while fixing the reported issue.

[Naituw]

Oops, I didn't realize there might be a bot to work on this, I've also submitted a PR #5723 to fix this