Adding Your First Project

Projects are local git repositories that VibeRails scans and reviews. This guide walks through adding a project and understanding the initial scan.

Open the Add Project Dialog

From the Projects tab, click the Add Project button in the top-right corner of the interface.

The Add Project button in the Projects toolbar — The Add Project button is located in the Projects toolbar.

Configure Project Details

The Add Project dialog asks for:

Project path — The absolute path to your local git repository. Click the folder icon to use the native file picker.
Display name — A human-friendly label (auto-populated from the folder name).
Exclusion rules — Additional glob patterns to exclude from scanning, layered on top of your .gitignore.

The Add Project dialog showing path, name, and exclusion fields — Fill in the project path, display name, and optional exclusion rules.

Tip: VibeRails automatically respects your .gitignore file. The exclusion rules field is for additional patterns you want to skip, such as large generated files, vendor directories, or test fixtures.

Project Appears in the Table

After clicking Add, VibeRails performs an initial scan of your repository. This indexes all tracked files, counts tokens, detects the primary language, and records the current git branch and status.

A project row in the Projects table showing file count, token count, and branch — The project row shows the file count, total token estimate, language, and current branch.

The project table displays:

Name — The display name you chose
Path — The repository location on disk
Files — Total number of scannable files (after exclusions)
Tokens — Estimated total token count for the codebase
Branch — The current git branch
Status — Whether there are uncommitted changes

Full Walkthrough

Here is the complete flow of adding a project, from clicking the button through to seeing it appear in the table:

Animated walkthrough of adding a project to VibeRails — Adding a project: open dialog, select folder, configure, and scan.

Understanding Exclusion Rules

VibeRails uses a layered exclusion system. Files are excluded from scanning if they match any of the following:

.gitignore — Your repository's standard ignore rules
Project exclusions — Custom glob patterns you set per-project
Global exclusions — Patterns configured in Settings that apply to all projects

Common exclusion patterns include:

dist/**
build/**
*.min.js
**/*.generated.*
coverage/**

Note: Exclusion rules only affect which files are sent to AI for review. VibeRails still tracks all git-managed files for branch and status information.

Next Steps

With a project added, you are ready to create your first code review session.