Make “@” file-picker respect .clineignore exclusions

[renzibei]

What happened?

Right now the “@” quick-open list does not read my project’s .clineignore. As a result, any files/folders I list in .clineignore still show up in the picker. When there are a lot of unrelated code files (like third party code), picking the right file would be a nightmare.

Steps to reproduce

1. Create a file at the project root named .clineignore containing:

/thirdparty/
thirdparty/*
./thirdparty/
./thirdparty/*
/thirdparty
/thirdparty/*

2. Open the cline chat and press @xxx
3. Notice that thirdparty/ and its contents still appear in the list.

Relevant API REQUEST output

Provider/Model

unrelated

Operating System

macOS Sequoia 15.4.1

Cline Version

3.13.3

Additional context

No response

[0xToshii]

Thanks for writing this up, we had a discussion about this - our thought here is that users should always be allowed to add any files to context, irrespective of what they placed in .clineignore which is more so for Cline

[renzibei]

Thanks for the context! I totally understand the desire to always allow “@” to surface every file for context, but in practice I’ve run into a real pain point: once you have a few large third‑party or generated directories in your workspace, the picker becomes almost unusable. Even if we keep the ability to open any file, I’d love to see a way to opt‑out of certain paths in the “@” list—something like:

• Respect an exclusion list: allow a dedicated ignore file (e.g. .clinepickerignore) or an opt‑in flag in settings.json so that .clineignore (or a separate file) can actually filter out files from the quick‑open.
• Toggle in settings: a simple checkbox “Exclude .clineignore paths from @ picker” so users who don’t need this can leave it off, but those of us with big thirdparty/ or vendor/ folders can turn it on.

Would love to hear what you think about adding a small configuration toggle here.

[celestial-vault]

Thanks for the suggestion! This has been consolidated into #4365 which addresses the complete file context system overhaul, including configurable file filtering options.