Dynamically load hints in subdirectories

[johnmatthewtennant]

Goose reads the hints in the working directory but does not read hints in subdirectories. This is problematic for working in monorepos.

E.g. If you run Goose from the repo-root folder, then Goose reads repo-root/agents.md on startup.
If you direct goose to make changes to the frontend in repo-root/frontend, Goose will start reading and editing files without reading repo-root/frontend/agents.md.

Claude code and cursor do read hints when they access files in subdirectories

I have a draft PR that adds logic to dynamically load hints in subdirectories when Goose reads files in those subdirectories.
It also maintains a turn counter and prunes the hints from the context when Goose hasn't accessed files in the subdirectory in the last N turns.

I'm new to the codebase and leaned heavily on AI to produce the draft PR so I'd like some help assessing if this is the right approach.

• I have verified this does not duplicate an existing feature request

[michaelneale]

thanks @johnmatthewtennant yeah, I think that is a good idea. I have tagged @alexhancock and we can chat more on the PR.

It is a tiny bit complicated, as the load hints happens at goose start time, but in this case I think you are talking about (if you can confirm?) you want it to pick up ones in relevant directories when the developer tool goes into sub directories somehow?

ie you start at A: use hints, then goose works in A/module/B - then you want it to load both module hints plus B hints?

and then when it goe sback up to module, unload the B hints? and back to A, unload both - is that right?
This would need changes to the developer MCP (not a problem) I think? As that directory change isn't happening at the platform level.

Do I have that right?

[alexhancock]

I am confused about the need for #5759 as @lifeizhou-ap did #4002 in August. I thought that handled this situation? @johnmatthewtennant @michaelneale

[johnmatthewtennant]

#4002 Loads hints from the current working directory UP to the git repo root. So if you open goose in repo/frontend it will also read the hints from repo/

My PR #5759 tracks the files that goose is accessing, so if you open goose in repo/ and then goose reads repo/frontend/index.html it will load the repo/frontend/ hints files

[alexhancock]

@johnmatthewtennant Ah right. I had forgotten we didn't do that in that PR, and left it as a followup.