readme-directory-tree

Helps you to maintain your project's README by automatically providing up-to-date directory structure in a treeview format.

Features

• Automatically generates and updates directory structure in a README.md file.
• Configurable maximum depth for directory tree view.
• Excludes specified directories (e.g., node_modules, .git).
• Easy to plug into CI.

Usage

1. Include tags in your README.md:

   <!-- TREEVIEW START -->
   <!-- TREEVIEW END -->

2. Run treeview.sh via CLI or automated action
   

3. You should see similar output in your README.md

   ├── example-directory/
   │   ├── build/
   │   ├── scripts/
   │   ├── src/
   │   │   ├── backend/
   │   │   │   └── server/
   │   │   └── frontend/
   │   │       ├── js/
   │   │       └── styles/
   │   └── tests/

Configuration

• treeview.sh accepts three parameters:

  1. root directory: (default: .)
     Specifies the root directory from which to generate the tree view.

  2. README.md path: (default: README.md in the current directory)
     Path to the README.md file where the tree view will be updated.

  3. maximum depth: (default: -1 for unlimited depth)
     Sets the maximum depth for directory traversal. For example:

     • 2 limits the depth to 2 levels.
     • -1 means unlimited depth.

  ./treeview.sh [root_directory] [readme_path] [max_depth]

  Examples:

  • Generate a directory tree starting from the current directory and update the local README.md:

    ./treeview.sh

  • Specify a different root directory:

    ./treeview.sh some_directory

  • Specify a different README.md file:

    ./treeview.sh some_directory /path/to/another/README.md

  • Limit the tree view to a maximum depth of 2:

    ./treeview.sh some_directory /path/to/another/README.md 2

Things to consider

This script hasn't been tested on macOS.