plandex-ai/plandex · error

error reading .plandexignore file: %s

Error message

error reading .plandexignore file: %s

What it means

GetPlandexIgnore loads and compiles the .plandexignore file for a directory. If the file exists (os.Stat succeeds) but ignore.CompileIgnoreFile fails to parse it, this error wraps the underlying parse error and aborts path resolution in GetPaths.

Source

Thrown at app/cli/fs/paths.go:359

	return &types.ProjectPaths{
		ActivePaths:    activePaths,
		AllPaths:       allPaths,
		ActiveDirs:     activeDirs,
		AllDirs:        allDirs,
		PlandexIgnored: ignored,
		IgnoredPaths:   ignoredPaths,
		GitIgnoredDirs: gitIgnoredDirs,
	}, nil
}

func GetPlandexIgnore(dir string) (*ignore.GitIgnore, error) {
	ignorePath := filepath.Join(dir, ".plandexignore")

	if _, err := os.Stat(ignorePath); err == nil {
		ignored, err := ignore.CompileIgnoreFile(ignorePath)

		if err != nil {
			return nil, fmt.Errorf("error reading .plandexignore file: %s", err)
		}

		return ignored, nil
	} else if !os.IsNotExist(err) {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("error checking for .plandexignore file: %s", err)
	}

	return nil, nil
}

func GetBaseDirForContexts(contexts []*shared.Context) string {
	var paths []string

	for _, context := range contexts {
		if context.FilePath != "" {
			paths = append(paths, context.FilePath)
		}
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to e2d772072e)

Solutions

1. Fix the invalid pattern syntax in .plandexignore (check the wrapped err message for the offending line)
2. Temporarily rename/move .plandexignore to confirm it is the cause
3. Check file permissions and encoding (save as plain UTF-8 text)
4. If the wrapped error is transient I/O, re-run after resolving the filesystem issue

Example fix

// before (.plandexignore)
!**/[unclosed
// after
!**/node_modules
!**/dist

ignorePath := filepath.Join(dir, ".plandexignore")
if _, err := os.Stat(ignorePath); err == nil {
    if data, rerr := os.ReadFile(ignorePath); rerr != nil {
        return rerr
    } else if err := validateIgnorePatterns(string(data)); err != nil {
        return fmt.Errorf("invalid .plandexignore: %w", err)
    }
}

ignored, err := GetPlandexIgnore(dir)
if err != nil {
    var perr *fs.PathError
    if errors.As(err, &perr) { /* handle I/O failure */ }
    return fmt.Errorf("plandexignore unavailable: %w", err)
}

When it happens

Trigger: A .plandexignore file exists in the project directory but its contents cannot be parsed/compiled by the ignore library (malformed pattern syntax, unreadable permissions causing read failure during compile).

Common situations: Hand-edited .plandexignore with invalid glob syntax (e.g. unterminated bracket patterns); file with weird encoding or binary content; filesystem permission changes after the Stat succeeded.

Related errors

• error loading accounts: %v
• error setting auth: %v
• error writing auth: %v
• error writing auth: %v
• error reading accounts.json: %v

AI-assisted analysis of plandex-ai/plandex@e2d772072e (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1581eb253fb6b873. Report an issue: GitHub.