Find File in Project

Esc p (or Find file in project from the ≡ menu) opens a centered fuzzy file finder over every non-ignored file in the project.

┌ Find file                                                    esc ┐
│  app.go                                              50/12345    │
│  internal/app/app.go                                             │
│  internal/app/app_test.go                                        │
│  internal/finder/score.go                                        │
│  ...                                                             │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Fuzzy ranking

The matcher is fzy-style. Each query character must appear in the path in order, case-insensitive. Score is positive for any hit; higher is better. The bonuses, in order of weight:

• Consecutive runs (+30) — unbroken matches outrank scattered ones. Typing app finds app.go before application_helper.go.
• Word boundaries (+20) — matches starting after /, _, -, ., or space outrank matches mid-word. tab finds cmd/tab.go before command-table.go.
• Basename (+15) — matches inside the file’s basename outrank matches in directory names. tab finds tab.go before tabs/foo.go.
• First character (+10) — query starting at position 0 of the path gets a small bump.
• Gap penalty (-1 per gap) — every unmatched character between matches costs a point.

The result is what your fingers expect: type the beginning of the basename, get the file you wanted. Type a few scattered letters, get a reasonable list anyway.

Gitignore handling

Two strategies, picked automatically:

• Git repos. SpiceEdit shells out to git ls-files --cached --others --exclude-standard -z once. One fork, around 150 ms on a 50,000-file repo, and gitignore comes for free — Git already knows.
• Non-git projects. A filepath.Walk with the go-gitignore library reading any .gitignore it finds, plus a hardcoded ignore list (.git, .hg, .svn, node_modules, vendor, __pycache__, .venv, dist, build, .next, .cache, .DS_Store).

The index is capped at 200,000 entries. If you have a project larger than that, the matcher will operate on the first 200k files seen — practically never an issue.

Indexing cadence

The index is built in a background goroutine at startup, so the modal opens with results in hand the first time you press Esc p. After that:

• The index refreshes every 10 seconds, on the same cadence as the file tree.
• The index also refreshes immediately after any create / rename / delete inside the editor — there is no perceptible lag between adding a file and finding it.
• Concurrent rebuild requests coalesce. A second Rebuild call while one is in flight is a no-op.

Navigation

The result count shows in the top-right corner of the modal: <visible>/<total>.