# Projectile

## Synopsis

**Projectile** is a project interaction library for Emacs.
It provides a powerful set of features operating at the project
level, as well as simple heuristics to identify projects.

Here are some of Projectile's essential features:

* jump to a file in a project, [ranked by frecency](https://docs.projectile.mx/projectile/indexing.html#file-ranking-frecency) (how recently and often you visit it)
* jump to a project buffer
* jump to a test in a project
* [find a file of a given kind and jump between related files](https://docs.projectile.mx/projectile/projects.html#finding-files-by-kind) (e.g. a Rails model and its controller)
* toggle between files with the same name but different extensions (e.g. `.h` <-> `.c/.cpp`, `Gemfile` <-> `Gemfile.lock`)
* toggle between code and its test (e.g. `main.service.js` <-> `main.service.spec.js`)
* jump to recently visited files in the project
* switch between projects you have worked on
* [per-project sessions with tab-bar workspaces](https://docs.projectile.mx/projectile/sessions.html) (restore each project's window layout and buffers, even across restarts)
* kill (close) all project buffers
* [search a project](https://docs.projectile.mx/projectile/usage.html#reviewing-search-matches) (grep/ripgrep, plus a native reviewable results UI)
* [replace in a project](https://docs.projectile.mx/projectile/usage.html#reviewing-and-applying-replacements), with a reviewable before/after preview
* find references in a project (using `xref` internally)
* run [project commands and tasks](https://docs.projectile.mx/projectile/tasks.html#project-tasks) (build/test/run, your own named tasks, and the npm scripts, Make targets and justfile recipes a project already defines)
* [work on one part of a monorepo](https://docs.projectile.mx/projectile/tasks.html#subprojects) - find files in a subproject, build or test just the module you're in
* [run the test at point](https://docs.projectile.mx/projectile/tasks.html#running-the-test-at-point) (tree-sitter, Emacs 29+)
* works with any `completing-read`-based completion UI (Vertico, Consult, Fido, Ido, etc.)
* automatic project discovery (see `projectile-project-search-path`)
* integration with the built-in `project.el` library

There's also a rich ecosystem of third-party [Projectile extensions](https://melpa.org/#/?q=projectile) that add even more features.

---------------
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I've been developing Projectile for over a decade now (since 2011). While it's a fun
project to work on, it still requires a lot of time and energy to maintain.

**Please consider [supporting financially Projectile's ongoing development](#funding).**

## Projectile in Action

Here's a glimpse of Projectile in action (using `ivy`):

![Projectile Demo](doc/modules/ROOT/assets/images/projectile-demo.gif)

In this short demo you can see:

* finding files in a project
* switching between implementation and test
* switching between projects

## Quickstart

The instructions that follow are meant to get you from zero to a running Projectile setup
in a minute.  Visit the
[online documentation](https://docs.projectile.mx) (or
[here](/usr/share/doc/elpa-projectile/nav.html)) for (way) more
details.

### Installation

Add this to your Emacs config:

```elisp
(projectile-mode +1)
;; Recommended keymap prefix on macOS
(define-key projectile-mode-map (kbd "s-p") 'projectile-command-map)
;; Recommended keymap prefix on Windows/Linux
(define-key projectile-mode-map (kbd "C-c p") 'projectile-command-map)
```

Those keymap prefixes are just a suggestion. Feel free to put there whatever works best for you.

### Basic Usage

Enable `projectile-mode`, open a file in one of your projects and type a command such as C-c p f.

See the [online documentation](https://docs.projectile.mx/projectile/usage.html) for more details.

Projectile reads through Emacs's built-in `completing-read`, so it works with
whatever minibuffer completion UI you use. It's fine with the stock completion,
but to get the most out of it you're encouraged to enable (and, if needed,
install) a modern completion setup such as `vertico` (paired with `consult`,
`marginalia`, and `orderless`) or the built-in `fido-vertical-mode`. See [this
section](https://docs.projectile.mx/projectile/configuration.html#completion-options)
of the documentation for more details.

> [!NOTE]
>
> As of Projectile 3.0 the dedicated `ido`/`ivy`/`helm` completion systems (and
> the old `projectile-completion-system` values) were removed in favor of
> `completing-read`. Existing setups keep working via your completion UI;
> `helm-projectile` and `counsel-projectile` are unaffected.

## Design Goals

In this section you'll find some notes on Projectile's design goals, that
have been upheld since the earliest days of the project.

### Portability

Projectile provides a nice set of features operating on a project level without
introducing external dependencies (when feasible). For instance -
finding project files has a portable implementation written in pure
Emacs Lisp without the use of GNU `find` (but for performance's sake an
indexing mechanism backed by external commands exists as well).

### Simplicity

This library provides easy project management and navigation. The concept of a
project is pretty basic - just a folder containing some special file (e.g. a VCS
marker or a project descriptor file like `pom.xml` or `Gemfile`). Projectile
will auto-detect pretty much every popular project type out of the box
and you can easily extend it with additional project types.

### Easy to Use

The configuration defaults are pretty reasonable and most users
will probably never feel a strong need to change them.

All commands are easily discoverable and are unlikely to surprise you
with their behavior.

### Practicality

Projectile tries to be practical - portability is great, but if some
external tools could speed up some task substantially and the tools
are available, Projectile will leverage them.

### Flexibility

In the classic spirit of Emacs almost every aspect of Projectile's behavior is
configurable.

## Caveats

* Some operations like search (grep) depend (presently) on external
  utilities such as `find` or `fd` (version 8.3.0+).
  * for older `fd` version add `(setq projectile-generic-command "fd . -0 --type f --color=never")` to your init-file
* Commands depending on external utilities might misbehave on the `fish` shell.
* Using Projectile over TRAMP might be slow in certain cases.
* Some commands might misbehave on complex project setups (e.g. a git project with submodules).
* Projectile was mostly tested on Unix OS-es (e.g. GNU/Linux and macOS), so some functionality might not work well on Windows.
* In Git repositories, deleted files are still shown in `projectile-find-file`
  until their deletions are staged, due to a limitation of `git ls-files`. If
  you install [fd](https://github.com/sharkdp/fd) then it is automatically used
  instead, and does not have this problem. (You can inhibit the use of `fd` by
  setting `projectile-git-use-fd` to `nil`.)

## Known issues

Check out the project's
[issue list](https://github.com/bbatsov/projectile/issues?sort=created&direction=desc&state=open)
a list of unresolved issues. By the way - feel free to fix any of them
and send me a pull request. :-)

## Funding

While Projectile is free software and will always be, the project would benefit
immensely from some funding. If you (or the company you work for) are making
serious use of Projectile, please consider supporting its ongoing development.

You can support my work on Projectile via:

* [GitHub Sponsors](https://github.com/sponsors/bbatsov)
* [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/bbatsov)
* [PayPal](https://www.paypal.me/bbatsov)

## Contributors

Here's a [list](https://github.com/bbatsov/projectile/contributors) of all the people who have contributed to the
development of Projectile (a.k.a. Projectile's Hall of Fame).

Joining this esteemed group of people is only a commit away!

## Changelog

A fairly extensive changelog is available [here](NEWS.gz).

[badge-license]: https://img.shields.io/badge/license-GPL_3-green.svg

## License

Copyright © 2011-2026 Bozhidar Batsov and
[contributors](https://github.com/bbatsov/projectile/contributors).

Distributed under the GNU General Public License, version 3
