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Prompted for permission at every subdirectory, plus incorrect errors #261
Description
Activity
Thanks @MattGertz.
In this case it seems to have come up with an unexpected path format (
/c:/Users/mattge...instead ofc:\Users\mattge). So when we check if the path is already approved, we think it isn't.I think we need to investigate why it's coming up with the strange path format and whether some prompting changes could eliminate this behavior.
Just for temporary investigative purposes, it would be interesting to try
illustrate the directory layout of this project, remembering to use Windows path formatsin your context and see if it gives better behavior. As soon as it starts using Windows paths it will likely continue doing so reliably for the rest of the conversation.@MattGertz Is it possible you're running under Cygwin? We're trying to understand why it even came up with that path format.
- added a commit that references this issue
on Jan 22, 2026 Closing this issue as we've made improvements in this space. If you're still running into these problems on the latest versions, @MattGertz, please let us know!
Describe the bug
Issued the command "illustrate the directory layout of this project" after allowing permissions on the current directory. For every subdirectory it encountered, I got a permission request -- and there were a lot of subdirectories and so a lot of requests to approve. It seems to me that these should be batched. During this, I also kept getting incorrect error messages like:
● I'll explore the project directory structure to provide you with a comprehensive
illustration.
✗ Read /c:/Users/mattge/Source/Repos/EuchreTest
Path does not exist
And yet it does exist and Github Copilot is able to investigate it correctly, so it's a false negative. This is seen for every subdirectory as well.
Affected version
0.0.337 Commit: 905260d
Steps to reproduce the behavior
Open powershell on Windows, navigate to a repo with lots of subdirectories.
Start copilot, give permissions for the current directory
Issue the command "illustrate the directory layout of this project"
== get a false and ignored error that the current directory and any encountered subdirectory does not exist, and then asks permissions to use the subdirectory anyway, for each subdirectory
Expected behavior
No false errors, and one prompt that asks for permission a priori for any subdirectory it may encounter.
Additional context
No response