project

Every project-aware surface in lattice roots itself at the buffer you are standing in: :files, :terminal, :search, magit. That is right until it is exactly wrong — a file open in project A, wanting to open one in project B — where the only route was :e with a hand-typed path.

This plugin adds the missing verb: choose the project first.

Getting it

It ships with lattice and is enabled by default — nothing to install, no toolchain, works offline.

It contributes the minor mode project-mode, and the loader registers project.enabled as the switch for it:

:set project.enabled=false

Keys

Both prefixes are bound, so project.el muscle memory works either way.

The distinction matters: pf acts on the project you are already in and shows no project picker, while pp asks which project first. Both are wanted — the first is the everyday verb and the second is what the plugin exists for.

pb is the same distinction applied to buffers. :b lists every buffer you have open across every checkout, which is right for :b and wrong when you are inside one project and want the handful of files that belong to it. It lists buffers whose file lives under the project root; a buffer with no file at all (*messages*, a magit status, an oil listing) belongs to no project and is not listed.

<C-x>p stays bound even with :set noemacs-keys. A plugin registers its keymap once at load and there is no unregister, so the gate the design wanted is not buildable today.

Commands

With no argument each acts on the current buffer's project.

:project-remember <Tab> completes directory names, and <C-x><C-o> on the argument opens the same directory browser :project-choose-dir does.

Removing a project

<C-d> in the project picker forgets the highlighted entry — the list re-draws and the picker stays open, so you can clear out several in a row. :project-forget [dir] does the same from the : line.

Nothing is deleted from disk. Forgetting is just "stop listing this one", and it is trivially undone: open a file in that project again and it comes back. Deleting an actual directory is oil's job (:project-dired) or the file tree's.

Where the list comes from

Projects are remembered as you visit them — open a file in one and it joins the list, most-recently-visited first. That is project.el's own model.

It has one hole: a project you have never opened a file in cannot be remembered by visiting it — which is precisely the case "open a file in project B" describes. Two things fill it.

… (choose a dir), the last row of the project picker. It is always there, including on a fresh install where it is the only row, and it opens a directory browser:

:project-switch
  lattice
  lattice-org-plugin
▸ … (choose a dir)                     <CR>
      ↓
  Choose a directory:  ~/src/dh▊
▸ ../                                 <CR>  go up
  ~/src/dhruvasagar/                   <Tab> go in
  ~/src/dharma/                        <C-h> go back up
                                       <CR>  choose this one

The prompt shows the directory you are in. Typing filters as you go, <Tab> descends into the highlighted directory — keep pressing it to go as deep as you like — and <C-h> climbs back out. <C-l> is <Tab>'s peer if you have ranger / lf muscle memory; <C-n> / <C-p> and the arrows move the selection. <CR> takes the one you are on: it is remembered, and its switch menu opens straight away — the same place you would have landed had it been in the list all along.

../ is the exception, and it reads the way it looks: <CR> on it goes up rather than choosing the parent, the same as <C-h>.

Any folder can be a project. It does not have to be a git repo or carry any other marker — a directory of notes or a scratch tree is a project if you want to work in it, and every verb here works rooted at a plain directory.

Choosing anywhere inside a project picks the project, so you can stop at ~/src/thing/src and still get ~/src/thing.

:project-remember ~/src/thing does the same seeding from the command line, without opening anything.

Nothing is pruned automatically. The plugin holds no filesystem capability, so it cannot tell a deleted checkout from one on an unmounted volume — a project whose directory has gone shows up as an empty file picker, and :project-forget removes it.

The switch menu

<leader>pp picks a project, then shows a menu of what to do in it. The rows come from project.switch-commands:

[project]
switch-commands = [
  { key = "f", label = "Find file",   command = "project-find-file" },
  { key = "b", label = "Buffers",     command = "project-buffers" },
  { key = "d", label = "Browse tree", command = "project-dired" },
  { key = "g", label = "Find regexp", command = "project-grep" },
  { key = "s", label = "Shell",       command = "project-shell" },
  { key = "m", label = "Magit",       command = "magit-status" },
]

Adding your own is one line. The whole contract is: a project command is an ex-command whose first argument is a project root. Any command that takes one can be a row — which is why the Magit row names magit-status directly rather than going through a wrapper.