Make sure the Gemini is in the project directory when getting started

[johnpryan]

As a user, I want to use Gemini CLI inside my project directory. This has a few advantages:

• the DESIGN.md and IMPLEMENTATION.md files are guaranteed to be created in the project directory (Right now, when I ran /create-app it puts them in the parent directory)
• Gemini knows what project I am working in. It got confused a few times when it was trying to analyze / test code from the parent directory
• It's clear to the user that they are in the correct directory (Gemini puts the directory at the bottom of the screen)

I see a few different options:

• Tell Gemini CLI to change directories into the newly created project when it runs /create-app
• Instruct users to run flutter create my_app and then gemini, and then /create-app (or a more meaningful name like/create-flutter-plan

[gspencergoog]

• Tell Gemini CLI to change directories into the newly created project when it runs /create-app

I like this solution the best. I agree that it's not ideal to have to refer to files in a directory below the one you started gemini in. On the other side, it is useful to start gemini in the parent directory, so that it has easy access to sibling projects/directories.

Part of the problem is how flutter create works. Unless you specify "." as the directory, it will create a new subdir, and it has to be run from the parent of that new subdir, which might not be available to Gemini, since it's not allowed to cd to a parent dir and run it.

I'll add some prompting to have it use "." in the case where the user wants it created in the current directory, and to cd into the project directory once it creates it, and make it more clear that the DESIGN.md and IMPLEMENTATION.md are to be created in the project directory.

[johnpryan]

I'm reopening this issue because I still don't have a great experience when I run /create-app. It puts DESIGN.md and IMPLEMENTATION.md files in the parent directory, and initializes a git repo in the parent directory.

[sethladd]

typically, the types of tools that create new projects won't create them in directories that contain contents, right?

so, I imagine the desired behavior is this:

cd $HOME
gemini
/create-app amazing app
output: sure, I'll create amazing_app/ and put all files under there, including IMPLEMENTATION.md

right?

Then, inside of amazing_app:

cd $HOME/amazing_app
ls

I should see:

IMPLEMENTATION.md
DESIGN.md
frontend/
  lib/main.dart
  pubspec.yaml

I like that because we need to help people build full-stack apps, so a backend will be next to a frontend

BONUS:

We should consider:

$HOME/amazing_app/
  specs/
    IMPLEMENTATION.md
    DESIGN.md
  frontend/
  backend/

[sethladd]

over to @gspencergoog and @johnpryan for comments on the above

[johnpryan]

I don't think we need to worry about frontend/ and backend/ right now, since that's not something the extension supports (Unless it does? I haven't tried telling it to create a Flutter app with a Dart backend, but that seems like a separate use case). I think the default behavior should be to create a Flutter app and initialize the git repo and .md files there.