Assistant: remove directory structure tool

[simonpcouch]

Addresses #10721, reworking the changes from #10517. Removes getDirectoryStructure in favor of a directoriesOnly argument to getProjectTree to save on input tokens and reduce the total number of tools.

The same examples from the PR that originally introduced the tool, this time using getProjectTree with directoriesOnly. Efficiently exploring the root:

Navigating a folder that's excluded by default by noticing that results were excluded and calling the tool again:

Seems like models can get just as much mileage out of this interface as with the dedicated tool.

Release Notes

New Features

• Assistant: combine directory structure tool with project tree tool (Assistant: remove getDirectoryStructure tool #10721)

Bug Fixes

• N/A

QA Notes

[github-actions]

E2E Tests 🚀
This PR will run tests tagged with: @:critical

^{readme  valid tags}

[sharon-wang]

would we still want something like maxDepth when directoriesOnly is used? Or maybe we'd want to switch maxFiles --> maxItems and use it for both file mode and directory mode?

[sharon-wang]

If we do maxFiles --> maxItems, should we rename these variables as well? E.g. filePatterns --> globPatterns; filesLimit --> itemLimit, etc.

[simonpcouch]

Yes, thank you! c80f2f7

[sharon-wang]

When directoriesOnly is specified, should we still use this logic? As it will use findFiles instead of collecting directories

[simonpcouch]

I ought not to have missed that. Thank you! 24f378b

[simonpcouch]

The last commit doesn't address any review comment specifically. I noticed that the second, unrestricted search in case of sparse result could take several seconds if there were many results:

  2025-12-02 16:43:07.894 [debug] [getProjectTree] Constructing
  project tree for 1 workspace folders...
  2025-12-02 16:43:07.894 [trace] [getProjectTree] Invoked with
  options: ...clip...
  2025-12-02 16:43:09.532 [debug] [getProjectTree] Default
  exclusions were applied and results were very sparse. Searching
  again to determine how many items were excluded...
  2025-12-02 16:43:16.813 [debug] [getProjectTree] Project tree
  constructed with 0 items across 1 workspace folders.
  2025-12-02 16:43:16.813 [debug] [getProjectTree] 212 results
  were excluded. Set `skipDefaultExcludes` to `true` to include
  them.
  2025-12-02 16:43:16.816 [debug] [tool] Tool getProjectTree
  returned result: [

I opted to instead return after any additional results were found in the second-search case and then just note that something was found. This cuts down on the latency quite a bit, and the model seems to still take the hint that it should keep looking.

[sharon-wang]

LGTM! 📁 📁 📁

[sharon-wang]

I wondered if the / might be an issue for Windows, but it seems that asRelativePath (which calls getRelativePath) ultimately uses posix forward slashes /, so we should be good here!

positron/src/vs/workbench/api/common/extHostWorkspace.ts

Lines 387 to 421 in 9873233

	getRelativePath(pathOrUri: string | vscode.Uri, includeWorkspace?: boolean): string {
	let resource: URI | undefined;
	let path: string = '';
	if (typeof pathOrUri === 'string') {
	resource = URI.file(pathOrUri);
	path = pathOrUri;
	} else if (typeof pathOrUri !== 'undefined') {
	resource = pathOrUri;
	path = pathOrUri.fsPath;
	}
	if (!resource) {
	return path;
	}
	const folder = this.getWorkspaceFolder(
	resource,
	true
	);
	if (!folder) {
	return path;
	}
	if (typeof includeWorkspace === 'undefined' && this._actualWorkspace) {
	includeWorkspace = this._actualWorkspace.folders.length > 1;
	}
	let result = relativePath(folder.uri, resource);
	if (includeWorkspace && folder.name) {
	result = `${folder.name}/${result}`;
	}
	return result!;
	}

positron/src/vs/base/common/resources.ts

Lines 235 to 258 in 9873233

	relativePath(from: URI, to: URI): string | undefined {
	if (from.scheme !== to.scheme || !isEqualAuthority(from.authority, to.authority)) {
	return undefined;
	}
	if (from.scheme === Schemas.file) {
	const relativePath = paths.relative(originalFSPath(from), originalFSPath(to));
	return isWindows ? extpath.toSlashes(relativePath) : relativePath;
	}
	let fromPath = from.path || '/';
	const toPath = to.path || '/';
	if (this._ignorePathCasing(from)) {
	// make casing of fromPath match toPath
	let i = 0;
	for (const len = Math.min(fromPath.length, toPath.length); i < len; i++) {
	if (fromPath.charCodeAt(i) !== toPath.charCodeAt(i)) {
	if (fromPath.charAt(i).toLowerCase() !== toPath.charAt(i).toLowerCase()) {
	break;
	}
	}
	}
	fromPath = toPath.substr(0, i) + fromPath.substr(i);
	}
	return paths.posix.relative(fromPath, toPath);
	}