I'm working on a large repo with many folders, and showing the status is slow (just plain git takes a long time).
I am really only interested in one directory, how can I constrain magit to only seek the status of one directory so it will be fast.
I am specifically not looking to filter directories after the status is displayed (for an answer to that question see here: Magit show status on selected directory)
I had the same request (I actually opened the issue that added this feature here), but was not satisfied with the requirement to add a new file every time I wanted to limit the magit status, so I created magit-status-current-dir to open magit in the current directory.
(defun magit-status-in-dir (dir)
"limit magit status to directory"
(interactive "D")
(require 'magit)
(let* ((root (vc-git-root dir))
(dir (list (file-relative-name dir root)))
(magit-status-mode-hook (cons (lambda () (setq-local magit-diff-section-file-args dir))
magit-status-mode-hook)))
(magit-status-internal root)))
(defun magit-status-current-dir ()
"run magit in current dir"
(interactive)
(magit-status-in-dir default-directory))
(defun magit-clear-diff-args-if-not-dir-local ()
(unless (assq 'magit-diff-section-file-args dir-local-variables-alist)
(setq-local magit-diff-section-file-args nil)))
(advice-add 'magit-status :around
(defun magit-remove-diff-args (fn &rest args)
(let ((magit-status-mode-hook (cons 'magit-clear-diff-args-if-not-dir-local
magit-status-mode-hook)))
(apply fn args))))
According to the sources, the directory filters not only affect UI, they are actually passed into git diff commands.
To avoid setting filters manually every time, according to author you can add a snippet to ~/path/to/repo/.dir-locals.el:
((magit-status-mode
(magit-diff-section-file-args . ("lisp/"))))
