Configuration & State Management

Context-Dump implements a silent state-persistence mechanism. This ensures that a developer’s workflow remains uninterrupted across multiple executions without requiring them to repeatedly pass the same CLI flags.

Persistence Lifecycle

When the application executes, it follows this configuration lifecycle:

1. Load Phase: The engine checks the user’s OS-specific configuration directory (e.g., ~/.config/context/last_run.json on Linux or %AppData% on Windows). If it exists, it deserializes the previous session’s state.
2. Override Phase: Any explicit flags passed via the CLI during the current execution (e.g., -f markdown) override the loaded persistent state.
3. Save Phase: Upon successful confirmation in the TUI, the active ContextConfig is serialized and saved back to the disk.

Note: Headless CLI executions (where flags like --stdout or --output are used) bypass the TUI and do not overwrite the persistent state, ensuring automated scripts do not pollute your interactive preferences.

Smart Ignore Heuristics

The engine employs a multi-layered approach to filter out irrelevant data via the NoiseDetector module. This is more aggressive than a standard .gitignore parser.

1. Standard Exclusions

Common development artifacts are hard-blocked to save IO time:

• Version Control: .git, .svn, .hg
• Dependency Caches: node_modules, vendor, .venv, bin, obj
• Build Outputs: target, dist, build, out

2. Heavy Artifact Detection

Files are evaluated based on extension and size limits. Even if a file isn’t explicitly ignored, it will be flagged as noise if it exceeds safety limits:

• Source code: Max 50 MB (prevents reading massive minified JS files).
• Data files (XML/JSON/CSV): Max 250 MB.
• Binary Office files: Max 1 GB (handles large documentation).
• Pure Binaries: .exe, .dll, .png, .mp4, .zip are hard-blocked to prevent token wastage.