# Directory tree access **URL:** \ **Category:** Help\ **Created:** [February 6, 2025, 12:38am UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/directory-tree-access/48273 "2025-02-06T00:38:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![amon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@amon](https://forum.cursor.com/u/amon)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2025, 12:38am UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/directory-tree-access/48273/1 "2025-02-06T00:38:49Z")
Is there a way to let the chat have access to an entire tree in one go? As an example, setting up a debian/ directory in a working set requires accessing and updating a bunch of configuration files as well as changelog, control and rules. It is a royal pain to have to set them up one at a time when the changes required are coordinated across all of them. ---
**Author:** ![danperks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/cursor1/user_avatar/forum.cursor.com/danperks/32/19087_2.png) [@danperks](https://forum.cursor.com/u/danperks)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2025, 11:24pm UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/directory-tree-access/48273/2 "2025-02-08T23:24:28Z")
Hey, you can use CMD+Enter when siubmitting a chat message to let it scan your codebase for context. If using the Composer, you can add @codebase to your prompt to do the same thing. This will pull the most relevant files from your codebase based on the prompt you have asked, and provide it as context to the AI. ---
**Author:** ![amon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@amon](https://forum.cursor.com/u/amon)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2025, 7:03am UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/directory-tree-access/48273/3 "2025-02-09T07:03:08Z")
That sounds interesting. Thank you. Is there a good man page or doc file I can study on this? Claude seems to know as little about the capabilities of the Cursor environment as I do. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![danperks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/cursor1/user_avatar/forum.cursor.com/danperks/32/19087_2.png) [@danperks](https://forum.cursor.com/u/danperks)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2025, 4:36pm UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/directory-tree-access/48273/4 "2025-02-11T16:36:19Z")
Hey, the best pages we have around this is probably: > **[@Codebase](https://docs.cursor.com/context/@-symbols/@-codebase#codebase)** > > Learn how Chat processes codebase queries using gathering, reranking, reasoning, and generation steps ---
**Author:** ![amon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@amon](https://forum.cursor.com/u/amon)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 7:47pm UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/directory-tree-access/48273/5 "2025-02-13T19:47:04Z")
I am still having problems. I type Ctrl-enter and the AI Chat cannot access the files I tell it to look at. What I really want is to give the AI the top level, in this case named Work/ and then while talking to it suggest it compare files in disparate places. I want to talk to it like I would a collaborating programmer. I give them access rights to the work directory, and then I just say… check out file.c in subdirectory a/b/c/ and have it ‘just do what I say’. I’m having the issues that it can never seem to see the files I am telling it to look at, even if it was able to look at it last night. It seems totally random what it can see at any given time. I just want a ‘once and done’ solution. ---
**Author:** ![amon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@amon](https://forum.cursor.com/u/amon)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2025, 8:00pm UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/directory-tree-access/48273/6 "2025-02-13T20:00:38Z")
If any one wishes, I could post the chat transcript. ---
**Author:** ![amon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@amon](https://forum.cursor.com/u/amon)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2025, 1:21am UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/directory-tree-access/48273/7 "2025-02-14T01:21:24Z")
Okay, Using the Folders command I tried ATSIGNWork . (the top level folder in the tree); I tried ATSIGNliblogdma ATSIGNtemplates-1.00 Neither let the chat session see all of the files in those directories I tried posting the transcript but it keeps telling me I can only refer to one other user when I am in fact not referring to any other users. I had to do funny things to the atsigns to get them through ---
**Author:** ![amon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@amon](https://forum.cursor.com/u/amon)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2025, 3:59am UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/directory-tree-access/48273/8 "2025-02-14T03:59:24Z")
I took out the atsigns in the dialogue transcript so you can see part of it. ```auto Tell me what directories and files you can see at the moment. From the ATSIGNlibdmalog and ATSIGNtemplates-1.00 tags, I can see: libdmalog/ extractSession.h examples/ CursorDataTest.m debian/ libdmalog-dev.examples libdmalog-dev/DEBIAN/md5sums templates-1.00/ makeclass (script) debian/ templates/ usr/bin/makeclass DEBIAN/conffiles I can see the structure and some files, but I don't see the actual Makefiles we need to modify. Could you show me: libdmalog/Makefile libdmalog/examples/Makefile This will help us ensure we're making the correct changes to fix the build issue. extractSession.h ``` That is a fraction of the files in those directories. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/cursor1/user_avatar/forum.cursor.com/system/32/99069_2.png) [@system](https://forum.cursor.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2026, 10:27am UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/directory-tree-access/48273/9 "2026-06-18T10:27:48Z")
Closed on June 18, 2026, 10:27am UTC