MiniMisc.setup_auto_root w/ snacks projects cd failure workaround

[purarue]

Contributing guidelines

• I have read CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

Module(s)

mini.misc

Question

I'm not particularly sure if this is a bug in either project, but I thought I'd share a workaround.

I recently started using setup_auto_root, and in conjunction with snacks, and using the Snacks.picker.projects, which searches for .git directories from some top level folder, lets you pick one, chdirs to it and then opens another picker to let you pick a file in that repository.

This can be reproduced in the following scenario:

• Open some file in repository a: setup_auto_root changes you to the root of that directory
• Trigger snacks.picker.project to change to some other repository b.

Expected: Switch to repository b, chdir and then display the files in repository b.

Actual: Still shows me files from repository a, and doesnt change the cwd

Here is a repro script:

for name, url in pairs({
    mini = "https://github.com/nvim-mini/mini.nvim",
    wk = "https://github.com/folke/which-key.nvim",
    snacks = "https://github.com/folke/snacks.nvim",
}) do
    local tmpdir = vim.loop.os_tmpdir()
    local install_path = vim.fn.fnamemodify(tmpdir .. "/misc_root_repro/" .. name, ":p")
    if vim.fn.isdirectory(install_path) == 0 then
        vim.fn.system({ "git", "clone", "--depth=1", url, install_path })
    end
    vim.opt.runtimepath:append(install_path)
end

vim.g.leader = " "
vim.o.timeoutlen = 1000

local wk = require("which-key")
wk.setup()
require("mini.misc").setup_auto_root()
require("snacks").setup({
    picker = { enabled = true, sources = {}, layout = {
        preset = "telescope",
    } },
})

vim.api.nvim_create_user_command("ProjectsFailsToCd", function(opts)
    local path = vim.fn.expand(opts.args)
    require("snacks.picker").projects({ dev = { path }, matcher = { frecency = false } })
end, { nargs = 1, complete = "dir" })

vim.api.nvim_create_user_command("ProjectsWorkaround", function(opts)
    local path = vim.fn.expand(opts.args)
    require("snacks.picker").projects({
        dev = { path },
        matcher = { frecency = false },
        -- can override the confirm to do something else
        -- instead of load_session here (the default), just cd and open a file picker
        -- https://github.com/folke/snacks.nvim/blob/68da653d206069007f71d4373049193248bf913b/lua/snacks/picker/actions.lua#L543
        confirm = function(picker, chosen)
            -- change default from load_session, just cd and open a picker
            picker:close()
            vim.fn.chdir(chosen.file)
            Snacks.picker.files()
        end,
    })
end, { nargs = 1, complete = "dir" })

If you download that to ~/Downloads.repro.lua, you can reproduce this by doing something like:

mkdir -p /tmp/test/
cd /tmp/test
mkdir -p a/c b; git -C a init; git -C b init; touch a/c/test1 b/test2; nvim -u ~/Downloads/repro.lua a/c/test1

• That init's two git repos to test in, and opens you in a/c/test1 (repository a)
• setup_auto_root then changes your :pwd to /tmp/test/a
• Try to run :ProjectFailsToCd .. and then select b

Then run :pwd to confirm you're still in the old directory.

I included ProjectsWorkaround, which is the workaround that I ended up using, but maybe this is a bug/could be configurable in some way (using lcd instead of chdir, im not sure what is causing this specifically?)

This may also just be a weird interaction with load_session action that is being run, but it looks like it does a chdir there as well.

edit: to state the obvious, if you disable setup_auto_root, the picker works fine

[echasnovski]

I'm not particularly sure if this is a bug in either project, but I thought I'd share a workaround.

I think the culprit lies in 'snacks.picker'. Thanks to your helpful link to the actual action that is used here, this call is the problem here. It defers the files picker by 100 ms and eventually calls it without arguments. This implicitly assumes that it will start in target directory due to this chdir, which does not hold in this particular case.

Since a lot can happen during those 100ms (like user/plugin changing working directory to something else), I think it is more reasonable to explicitly start files picker with target directory. Basically applying the following patch to 'snacks.nvim' code that is being used seems to fix the issue:

diff --git a/lua/snacks/picker/actions.lua b/lua/snacks/picker/actions.lua
index 6e6050e..fa20238 100644
--- a/lua/snacks/picker/actions.lua
+++ b/lua/snacks/picker/actions.lua
@@ -555,7 +555,7 @@ function M.load_session(picker, item)
   })
   vim.defer_fn(function()
     if not session_loaded then
-      Snacks.picker.files()
+      Snacks.picker.files({ dirs = { dir } })
     end
   end, 100)
   vim.fn.chdir(dir)

---

For future, I'd highly recommend to limit reproduction setup to as minimal code as possible. Leave only the code that you can not remove while still reproducing the issue. In particular, there is no reason to install/setup 'folke/which-key.nvim', set particular options, or create a dedicated user command (the :lua Snacks.picker.projects() call with possible options would be enough). Having extra stuff in the reproduction code usually makes it harder for the recipient to find the root cause of the issue.

[purarue]

Thanks for the pointers on the reproduction, was trying to figure out an easy way to trigger it with a keybind/on launch (but was not running if I just had it inline) but :lua Snacks... would've worked as well.

I will think about opening an issue in the snacks repository to configure/add that as the default