How can the list of projects used by Projectile be manually updated?

Question

I use the command locate --regex '/.git$' | grep username to get a list of all the Git repositories under my $HOME folder.

Is there a way to load them all into Projectile, to make them all instantly available?

Answer 1

You can add a single project to Projectile's runtime list of known projects (projectile-known-projects) using the command projectile-add-known-project, which interactively prompts you for the root directory of a project.

In order to add multiple projects at a time, you can use projectile-known-projects-file, which is read when projectile.el is first loaded. This file can either be modified by hand, or updated with the contents of projectile-known-projects using the command projectile-cleanup-known-projects. The contents of projectile-known-projects-file form a list of project root directories, e.g. ("~/src/emacs/" "~/src/projectile/").

ADDENDUM:

You could also write your own function which:

1. calls a custom/external command (like the one you mention) resulting in a sequence of directory paths;
2. adds the resulting directories to projectile-known-projects; and
3. (optionally) writes projectile-known-projects to projectile-known-projects-file for persistence by calling (projectile-save-known-projects).

EDIT (tip for Git and Magit users):

If you use Magit, you can reuse some of its git repository locating functionality (see magit-repos.el) in your Projectile configuration. Here's an example from my own configuration:

1. Configure magit-repository-directories (which see) to include the desired directories. Note that each entry can be associated with a subdirectory depth. If you organise all your projects as subdirectories of a select few parent directories, then only the parent directories need be added to magit-repository-directories, with the corresponding search depth. For example:

   (with-eval-after-load 'magit
     (setq magit-repository-directories
           '(;; Directory containing project root directories
             ("~/src/"      . 2)
             ;; Specific project root directory
             ("~/dotfiles/" . 1))))
   

2. After Projectile is loaded, you can add all repositories reported by Magit to projectile-known-projects using something like:

   (with-eval-after-load 'projectile
     (when (require 'magit nil t)
       (mapc #'projectile-add-known-project
             (mapcar #'file-name-as-directory (magit-list-repos)))
       ;; Optionally write to persistent `projectile-known-projects-file'
       (projectile-save-known-projects)))
   

(If you use use-package you can replace with-eval-after-load 'projectile with use-package projectile :config.)