existing folder contents overridden when /add dirname/ in aider --yes

[VictorBargains]

Issue

I had just had chat_gpt refactor my aider-made code, and make tests for it, and wanted to go back and start running those tests via the aider /run loop. I had previously made new files, made a tests folder, and in vs code dragged them into that folder. Then in the terminal I went back to aider and switched from the single-file to multi-file context, including the subfolder of tests I tried to add. Since I was in --yes mode, it appears to have assumed it needed to create a new blank tests folder. I don't know why it did that or why it crashed, but now my tests folder is empty and I don't have those test files in vs code anymore.

I acknowledge that I Should Have committed my own new files first so I wasn't asking aider to operate on uncommitted changes... and I can just copy/paste the files from chatgpt again.. so it's no big loss, just maybe this is an avoidable bug.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
chatgpt.py> /drop chatgpt.py

Removed chatgpt.py from the chat
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
> /add page_splitter.py main.py document_parser.py tests/

No files matched 'tests/'. Do you want to create 
C:\Users\vandersen\source\repos\SMWParser\design_tools\docx_splitter\tests? yes
Added C:\Users\vandersen\source\repos\SMWParser\design_tools\docx_splitter\document_parser.py to the 
chat
Added C:\Users\vandersen\source\repos\SMWParser\design_tools\docx_splitter\main.py to the chat
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<frozen runpy>", line 198, in _run_module_as_main
  File "<frozen runpy>", line 88, in _run_code
  File "C:\Users\vandersen\source\repos\SMWParser\design_tools\docx_splitter\env\Scripts\aider.exe\__main__.py", line 7, in <module>
  File "C:\Users\vandersen\source\repos\SMWParser\design_tools\docx_splitter\env\Lib\site-packages\aider\main.py", line 402, in main
    coder.run()
  File "C:\Users\vandersen\source\repos\SMWParser\design_tools\docx_splitter\env\Lib\site-packages\aider\coders\base_coder.py", line 476, in run
    new_user_message = self.run_loop()
                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:\Users\vandersen\source\repos\SMWParser\design_tools\docx_splitter\env\Lib\site-packages\aider\coders\base_coder.py", line 503, in run_loop
    return self.commands.run(inp)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:\Users\vandersen\source\repos\SMWParser\design_tools\docx_splitter\env\Lib\site-packages\aider\commands.py", line 133, in run
    return self.do_run(matching_commands[0][1:], rest_inp)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:\Users\vandersen\source\repos\SMWParser\design_tools\docx_splitter\env\Lib\site-packages\aider\commands.py", line 107, in do_run
    return cmd_method(args)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:\Users\vandersen\source\repos\SMWParser\design_tools\docx_splitter\env\Lib\site-packages\aider\commands.py", line 421, in cmd_add
    content = self.io.read_text(abs_file_path)
              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:\Users\vandersen\source\repos\SMWParser\design_tools\docx_splitter\env\Lib\site-packages\aider\io.py", line 165, in read_text
    with open(str(filename), "r", encoding=self.encoding) as f:
         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: 'C:\\Users\\vandersen\\source\\repos\\SMWParser\\design_tools\\docx_splitter\\tests'
(env) 

Version and model info

Aider v0.32.0
Models: gpt-4-1106-preview with udiff edit format, weak model gpt-3.5-turbo
Git repo: .git with 2 files
Repo-map: using 1024 tokens
VSCode terminal detected, pretty output has been disabled.
Use /help to see in-chat commands, run with --help to see cmd line args

[VictorBargains]

Possibly unrelated... maybe another thing to smooth over?

aider --yes tests/* *.py
tests/__pycache__ is a directory, not provided alone.
Provide either a single directory of a git repo, or a list of one or more files.  

it worked to do tests/*.py instead but maybe this kinda thing can just be ignored and the other files can still be loaded?

[paul-gauthier]

Thanks for trying aider and filing this issue.

I can not reproduce this error:

$ aider --yes

No git repo found, create one to track GPT's changes (recommended)? y
Git repository created in the current working directory.
Added .aider* to .gitignore
Aider v0.35.1-dev
Models: gpt-4o with diff edit format, weak model gpt-3.5-turbo
Git repo: .git with 0 files
Repo-map: using 1024 tokens
Use /help to see in-chat commands, run with --help to see cmd line args
──────────────────────
> /add subdir/

No files matched 'subdir/'. Do you want to create /Users/gauthier/tmp/subdir-bug/subdir? yes
/Users/gauthier/tmp/subdir-bug/subdir: is a directory
Unable to read /Users/gauthier/tmp/subdir-bug/subdir
──────────────────────
> /exit

$ ls -l subdir/
total 0
-rw-r--r--  1 gauthier  staff  0 May 16 08:58 file-in-subdir.txt

The fact that you got a PermissionError also makes me think aider wasn't able to do anything to your tests/ folder. Aider doesn't ever try and delete files.

Are you able to reproduce this bug?

[paul-gauthier]

I'm going to close this issue for now, but feel free to add a comment here and I will re-open or file a new issue any time.