This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by kkrishnan10
After exploring how Repomix handled file-ignoring logic, I wrote the same type of feature in my own project, ContextWeaver. My goal was to make my repo ContextWeaver automatically skip irrelevant files such as node_modules, build folders, and logs while scanning repositories.
To achieve this, I created a new module called ignore.py and integrated it into main.py. The ignore.py file merges default ignore patterns, .gitignore entries, and any custom globs provided through the –ignore flag. In the main script, these patterns are used by a helper function should_skip() that decides whether each file should be kept or excluded.
I also added new CLI options such as –ignore, –no-default-ignores, and –verbose. When running the command “python3 src/main.py . –verbose”, the program lists every file with “ADD” or “SKIP,” giving a clear view of what gets included. The resulting file list is saved to contextweaver_output.txt, making the tool more user friendly and Git-aware.
This was my first time reading another project’s source code to learn a feature and then reimplementing it myself. It showed me how to adapt ideas while writing cleaner, modular code. The next steps are already planned in my Issues page: adding nested .gitignore support, handling negation patterns (!pattern), benchmarking performance, and improving documentation. Through this lab, I learned how open source developers plan incremental improvements, file Issues, and build on one another’s work to make software evolve continuously.
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by kkrishnan10