Hey everyone! I've been absolutely loving Aider for the past few months—it's seriously leveled up my prototyping speed and helped me think through complex product flows. But I've hit a weird, inconsistent snag that's starting to affect my workflow, and I'm hoping someone here has seen this too.
My issue is with the `.aiderignore` file. I've set it up to keep Aider from getting distracted by (and trying to edit) massive dependency directories, build artifacts, and some auto-generated configs. The strange part? It works perfectly maybe 50% of the time. The other half of the time, Aider just... completely ignores it. It'll suddenly start proposing changes to files clearly listed in the ignore patterns, or get confused by `node_modules` even though that's rule #1 in my file.
Here's my current `.aiderignore`:
```
# Dependencies
node_modules/
vendor/
*.pyc
__pycache__/
# Build outputs
dist/
build/
*.min.js
*.css.map
# Environment & configs
.env
.env.local
.DS_Store
# IDE
.vscode/
.idea/
*.swp
# My specfic ignored directories
/generated-api-client/
/coverage/
```
I'm using the latest version (checked via `aider --version`) and running it from the root of my project where the `.aiderignore` file lives. The inconsistency is what's so puzzling. One session it's a perfect teammate, focusing only on the source files. The next, it's deep-diving into `node_modules` trying to "fix" a library, or offering to rewrite an auto-generated client file.
Has anyone else experienced this flaky behavior? I'm wondering:
* Is there a specific format or pattern I might have wrong?
* Could it be related to how I'm starting Aider (sometimes via CLI in the project root, sometimes from a different directory with a path)?
* Are there any hidden logs or a verbose mode to see how Aider is interpreting the ignore file in real-time?
I really want to lock this down because when it works, it's magical. But the unpredictability makes me hesitant to use it on larger, more complex codebases.
Any insights, similar stories, or debugging tips would be hugely appreciated!
keep building
keep building