Table of Contents

• Description
• News
• Installation
• Usage
  • Getting started
  • Summary of interactive commands
  • The counsel-projectile command
  • The counsel-projectile-switch-project command
  • The counsel-projectile-find-file command
  • The counsel-projectile-find-file-dwim command
  • The counsel-projectile-find-dir command
  • The counsel-projectile-switch-to-buffer command
  • The counsel-projectile-grep command
  • The counsel-projectile-git-grep command
  • The counsel-projectile-ag command
  • The counsel-projectile-rg command
  • The counsel-projectile-org-capture command
  • The counsel-projectile-org-agenda command
• Configuration
  • Enabling counsel-projectile mode when emacs starts
  • Customizing counsel-projectile key bindings
  • Customizing action lists
  • Setting counsel-projectile-org-capture templates
  • Removing the current project or buffer from the list of candidates
  • Initial input for the project search commands
  • Matcher for counsel-projectile-find-file
  • Sorting candidates
• Upgrading
  • Breaking changes in version 0.3
    • Key bindings
  • Breaking changes in version 0.2
    • Key bindings
    • Action lists
    • Minibuffer keymap
• Contributors

Projectile has native support for using ivy as its completion system. Counsel-projectile provides further ivy integration into projectile by taking advantage of ivy's support for selecting from a list of actions and applying an action without leaving the completion session. Concretely, counsel-projectile defines replacements for existing projectile commands as well as new commands that have no projectile counterparts. A minor mode is also provided that adds key bindings for all these commands on top of the projectile key bindings.

• [2019-01-27] New version 0.3. If you are upgrading from 0.2, please read here about breaking changes.
• [2018-01-05] Package now available on MELPA Stable.
• [2017-12-18] New version 0.2. If you are upgrading from 0.1, please read here about breaking changes.
• [2016-04-12] First version 0.1.

Install the package from

• MELPA,
• MELPA Stable,
• el-get,
• GNU Guix, or
• clone this repository somewhere in your load path.

To turn on counsel-projectile mode, either call the command counsel-projectile-mode or use the Customize interface to toggle on the variable counsel-projectile-mode. This will turn on projectile mode, thus enabling all projectile key bindings, and add the counsel-projectile key bindings on top of them.

Note that starting with projectile version 1.1, the projectile (and counsel-projectile) key bindings are only available after you select a keymap prefix for them. For instance, to select C-c p as prefix (the default prior to version 1.1), you need to execute the following form:

(define-key projectile-mode-map (kbd "C-c p") 'projectile-command-map)

The counsel-projectile key bindings either remap existing projectile commands to their counsel-projectile replacements (e.g. C-c p f now calls counsel-projectile-find-file instead of projectile-find-file) or bind keys to counsel-projectile commands that have no projectile counterparts (e.g. C-c p SPC calls the command counsel-projectile).

Calling the command counsel-projectile-mode once again or toggling off the variable counsel-projectile-mode disables the counsel-projectile key bindings and turns off projectile mode.

Note that if you turn on projectile mode but not counsel-projectile mode, the counsel-projectile commands can still be called with M-x, only the key bindings for these commands are not enabled.

Replacements for existing commands:

New commands:

Default key binding: C-c p SPC.

This command lets you quickly jump to a project buffer or file. It uses ivy to display in the minibuffer a list of all project buffers as well as all project files that are not currently visited by a buffer. Buffers are fontified according to their major mode and files are fontified as virtual buffers, as in the command ivy-switch-buffer. As in all ivy commands, you can use M-o / C-M-o + key to select from a list of actions to apply (or M-RET / C-M-RET to apply the default action) to the selected candidate:

The key binding C-c C-k can also be used from the minibuffer to kill the buffer corresponding to the current candidate (same as C-M-o k).

If not called inside a project, counsel-projectile first offers to select a project to switch to by calling counsel-projectile-switch-project (see below). Once you select a project and hit RET, it lets you jump to a buffer or file in this project as described above.

Default key binding: C-c p p.

This command is a replacement for projectile-switch-project. It adds the possibility to select from a list of switch-project actions to apply to the selected project:

Default key binding: C-c p f.

This command is a replacement for projectile-find-file. It displays a list of all project files and offers several actions:

Default key binding: C-c p g.

This command is a replacement for projectile-find-file-dwim. It is similar to counsel-projectile-find-file except that the list of project files is restricted to those matching the filename at point, if any.

Default key binding: C-c p d.

This command is a replacement for projectile-find-dir. It displays a list of all project directories and offers several actions:

Default key binding: C-c p b.

This command is a replacement for projectile-switch-to-buffer. It displays a list of all project buffers and offers several actions:

The key binding C-c C-k can also be used from the minibuffer to kill the buffer corresponding to the current candidate (same as C-M-o k).

Default key binding: C-c p s g.

This command is a replacement for projectile-grep. It searches all project files with grep, taking advantage of ivy's support for updating the list of candidates after each input (dynamic collections). Each candidate corresponds to a matching line in some project file, and the following actions are offered:

If inside a git project and the variable projectile-use-git-grep is non-nil, then counsel-projectile-grep uses git grep instead of grep, by calling the function counsel-projectile-git-grep (see below).

Default key binding: C-c p s i.

This command is similar to counsel-projectile-grep (see above) but uses git grep instead of grep (hence it only works in git projects).

Default key binding: C-c p s s.

This command is a replacement for projectile-ag. It is similar to counsel-projectile-grep (see above) but uses ag (the silver searcher) instead of grep.

Default key binding: C-c p s r.

This command is a replacement for projectile-ripgrep. It is similar to counsel-projectile-grep (see above) but uses rg (ripgrep) instead of grep.

Default key binding: C-c p O c.

This command is a replacement for org-capture (or counsel-org-capture) offering project-specific capture templates, in addition to the regular templates available from org-capture. By default, there is a single project template, named [<project-name>] Tasks, which stores the captured information under headline Tasks in file <project-root>/notes.org.

If not inside a project, the project templates are ignored and only the regular ones are offered. So you may want to systematically use counsel-projectile-org-capture isntead of org-capture or counsel-org-capture (you may also want to give it a global key binding, such as C-c c).

The following actions are offered:

Default key binding: C-c p O a.

This command opens the current project's agenda. It simply calls org-agenda after filtering out all agenda files that do not belong to the current project.

To automatically enable counsel-projectile mode when emacs starts, you can either use the Customize interface to toggle on the variable counsel-projectile-mode and save your customization, or add (counsel-projectile-mode) to your init file.

Note that starting with projectile version 1.1, the projectile (and counsel-projectile) key bindings are only available after you select a keymap prefix for them. For instance, to select C-c p as prefix (the default prior to version 1.1), you need to add the following form to your init file:

(define-key projectile-mode-map (kbd "C-c p") 'projectile-command-map)

The key bindings that are added when counsel-projectile-mode is turned on are determined by the variable counsel-projectile-key-bindings. You can set this variable, either directly or through the customize interface, to customize these key bindings. It holds an alist of (KEY . DEF) pairs, where KEY is either a key sequence to bind in projectile-command-map or a projectile command to remap in projectile-mode-map, and DEF is the counsel-projectile command to which KEY is remapped or bound.

The lists of available actions (including the default action) for most of the commands above are stored in custom variables. If you set one of these variables, either directly or through the through the Customize interface, the new value will be picked up the next time you invoke the corresponding command.

The variable holding the action list for <command> is named <command>-action. The following action list variables are defined:

• counsel-projectile-action
• counsel-projectile-switch-project-action
• counsel-projectile-find-file-action
• counsel-projectile-find-dir-action
• counsel-projectile-switch-to-buffer-action
• counsel-projectile-grep-action

For instance, the default value of counsel-projectile-action is:

'(1
  ("o" counsel-projectile-action
   "current window")
  ("j" counsel-projectile-action-other-window
   "other window")
  ("x" counsel-projectile-action-file-extern
   "open file externally")
  ("r" counsel-projectile-action-file-root
   "open file as root")
  ("m" counsel-projectile-action-find-file-manually
   "find file manually")
  ("p" (lambda (_) (counsel-projectile-switch-project))
   "switch project"))

The first element is the index of the default action, and the remainig ones are the available actions (a key, an action function, and a name for each action). Thus the default action in this list is the first one (o key).

Extra actions can be added to these lists or, alternatively, can be set through ivy's ivy-set-actions mechanism. If you prefer setting all actions (except the default one) through this mechanism, you can set the action list variable to a single action (e.g. counsel-projectile-action) instead of a list. If you are not using the Customize interface and want to amend the value of one of these lists rather than setting it from scratch, you can use the function counsel-projectile-modify-action, which lets you easily:

• add, remove, or move an action,
• change an action key, function, or name,
• change the index of the default action.

See its docstring for details.

The mechanism to customize action lists is slightly different for some commands that internally rely on built-in ivy commands and hence inherit these command's actions. For these commands, a variable <command>-extra-actions is defined:

• counsel-projectile-git-grep-extra-actions
• counsel-projectile-ag-extra-actions
• counsel-projectile-rg-extra-actions
• counsel-projectile-org-capture-extra-actions

These variable have the same format as above without the initial index. You can also modify the built-in command's action through ivy's ivy-set-actions mechanism.

The project-specific capture templates for counsel-projectile-org-capture are read from the variable counsel-projectile-org-capture-templates. This variable has the same format as the variable org-capture-templates, except that in a template's name or target, the placeholders ${root} and ${name} can be used to stand for the current project root and name, respectively.

The default value contains a single template, whose name is [${name}] Task and whose target is:

(file+headline "${root}/notes.org}" "Tasks")

This points to headline Tasks in file notes.org in the project root directory (one file per project).

Two other examples of valid targets are:

(file+headline "${root}/${name}.org}" "Tasks")
(file+olp "~/notes.org" "${root}" "Tasks")

The first one is similar to the default value's target, except that the file is named after the project name (this can be handy if you use org-mode's agenda since the project name is then displayed as category). The second one points to outline path <project-root>/Tasks in file ~/notes.org (same file for all projects).

Project-specific template contexts are read from the variable counsel-projectile-org-capture-templates-contexts, which has the same format as org-capture-templates-contexts

By default, when calling counsel-projectile-switch-project, the current project (if any) is included in the candidates list and preselected. Similarly, when calling counsel-projectile-switch-to-buffer, the current buffer is included in the candidates list and preselected. If you prefer removing these elements from the candidate lists of these commands, you can set the variables counsel-projectile-remove-current-project and counsel-projectile-remove-current-buffer accordingly.

If you want some initial input to be inserted in the minibuffer every time you call counsel-projectile-grep, counsel-projectile-ag, or counsel-projectile-rg, you can customize the variables counsel-projectile-grep-initial-input, counsel-projectile-ag-initial-input, or counsel-projectile-rg-initial-input accordingly. Each of these variable, if non nil, should hold a Lisp expression whose evaluation yields the initial input string. If you use the Customize interface, some choices are proposed based on various versions of the thing-at-point function. Note that you can always insert the value of (ivy-thing-at-point) by hitting M-n in the minibuffer.

By default, the command counsel-projectile-find-file relies on the the matcher of the command counsel-find-file to display files matching minibuffer input, allowing to ignore some files based on the variable counsel-find-file-ignore-regexp. It is possible to use another matcher by setting the variable counsel-projectile-find-file-matcher. Some choices are proposed if you use the Customize interface, in particular the counsel-projectile-find-file-matcher-basename matcher which is provided by counsel-projectile and only displays files whose basename matches the minibuffer input (if there is none, it shows all matching files).

Independently of the chosen matcher, it is possible to specifying a minimum number of characters to input before the matching project files are shown through the variable counsel-projectile-find-file-more-chars. The default value is 0, but a strictly positive value can improve performance in large projects.

The values of counsel-projectile-find-file-matcher and counsel-projectile-find-file-more-chars are also used by counsel-projectile to match files.

The following commands allow to modify the way candidates are sorted:

• counsel-projectile-switch-project
• counsel-projectile-find-file
• counsel-projectile-find-dir
• counsel-projectile-switch-to-buffer

Sorting for these commands is controlled by the following variables, respectively:

• counsel-projectile-sort-projects
• counsel-projectile-sort-files
• counsel-projectile-sort-directories
• counsel-projectile-sort-buffers

If one of these variable is nil, the default, the command's candidates are not sorted. If it is non-nil, they are sorted. The sorting criterion can be customized through the variable ivy-sort-functions-alist. For instance, if you want files to be sorted from newest to oldest, then you need to add the following entry to this list:

'(counsel-projectile-find-file . file-newer-than-file-p)

Note that the counsel-projectile command always sorts buffers before files. Buffers are sorted as in counsel-projectile-switch-to-buffer and files are sorted according to counsel-projectile-find-file.

If the variable counsel-projectile-preview-buffers is non-nil, counsel-projectile-switch-to-buffer and counsel-projectile display a preview of the selected buffer in the current window. This makes these commands behave similarly to counsel-switch-buffer. If counsel-switch-buffer-preview-virtual-buffers is also non-nil, counsel-projectile also displays a preview of the selected non-visited file.

The keymaps counsel-projectile-mode-map and counsel-projectile-command-map no longer exist. The counsel-projectile key bindings are now determined by the variable counsel-projectile-key-bindings, which see, and added directly to the native projectile keymaps (projectile-mode-map and projectile-command-map).

The commands counsel-projectile-on, counsel-projectile-off and counsel-projectile-toggle no longer exist. They are replaced with the counsel-projectile minor mode. You can toggle this mode either by calling the counsel-projectile-mode command. or by setting the counsel-projectile-mode variable throught the Customize interface.

The available actions for the various counsel-projectile commands are now customized differently:

• The custom variable corresponding to <command> is now named <command-action> instead of <command-actions>.
• This variable now stores all the available actions, including the default action, not only the extra actions.
• It also stores the index of the default action (it is a list whose first element is this index and whose remaining elements are the available actions).
• This variable is now used as the value of the :action parameter for the command's ivy-read call. Hence if you set it outside the Customize interface, you no longer need to call ivy-set-actions afterwards. If you set extra actions through ivy-set-actions, they will not replace the variable's actions but will be added to them.

Also, in the default action lists, the keys set for some actions have changed, mainly for the counsel-projectile-switch-project command. Indeed, as new actions were added to this command, the corresponding list of keys was becoming somewhat inconsistent. The new keys replicate the default projectile key bindings (for instance, the action to save all project buffers is now called with the key S, mimicking the default key binding C-c p S for the command projectile-save-project-buffers). When an action calls a command that has no default projectile key binding, its key is chosen among those that are not bound by projectile by default.

The minibuffer keymap counsel-projectile-map no longer exists. It was only used to bind a key (M-SPC by default) to the command counsel-projectile-drop-to-switch-project exiting the current command and calling counsel-projectile-switch-project. The same functionality is now implemented in a simpler way through an action that calls counsel-projectile-switch-project, whose key is p by default. Concretely, you should now hit M-o p instead of M-SP.

Counsel-projectile is inspired by helm-projectile. Many thanks to abo-abo and DamienCassou who encouraged and helped me to start this repository, as well as all contributors and users who have submitted issues and pull requests.