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rtk ls: -a is ignored; -1 controls hidden-entry visibility instead #3608
Description
Summary
In rtk ls, the -a flag has no effect on which entries are listed, and -1 — which should only control one-entry-per-line formatting — is what determines whether hidden entries appear. The result is that three of the four common flag combinations disagree with native ls.
Environment
- rtk 0.45.0 (Homebrew)
- macOS 26.3.1, arm64
- Default config; no
lsalias;LANGunset,LC_COLLATE=C
Reproduction
mkdir -p /tmp/rtkrepro && cd /tmp/rtkrepro
touch visible.txt .hidden| form | native ls |
rtk ls |
correct? |
|---|---|---|---|
| (no flags) | visible.txt |
.hidden visible.txt |
no — shows a dotfile that should be hidden |
-1 |
visible.txt |
. .. .hidden visible.txt |
no — adds ., .. and a dotfile |
-a |
. .. .hidden visible.txt |
.hidden visible.txt |
no — omits . and .. |
-1a |
. .. .hidden visible.txt |
. .. .hidden visible.txt |
yes |
Deterministic across repeated runs. Exit code is 0 in all cases.
Expected
rtk ls should honour -a for hidden-entry inclusion, and -1 should affect formatting only. Concretely: without -a, entries beginning with . should be omitted; with -a, . and .. should be included.
Impact
On a real project directory this inflates the listing noticeably — a repo root here returns 25 entries from ls -1 and 32 from rtk ls -1, the extras being ., .., .DS_Store, .claude, .git, .gitignore, .superpowers. Since rtk exists to reduce tokens sent to an LLM, -1 listings are currently larger than the native command they replace, and consumers that count entries will over-count.
Possibly related
This may be a regression from the fix for #803 (rtk ls -1 returned empty output), which this version does resolve — -1 no longer returns (empty). I have not read the implementation, so the connection is a guess rather than a finding.
Activity
pszymkowiak commentedon Aug 19, 2026
🔍 Automated Triage
bughighSummary
rtk ls has -a and -1 flag semantics swapped/conflated (hidden-entry filtering tied to -1 instead of -a, likely a regression from the #3527/#803 fix); restore correct flag independence so -a controls hidden entries and -1 only controls line formatting.
📁 Relevant files
src/commands/ls.rsTriaged automatically by wshm · This is an automated analysis, not a human review.
KuSh commentedon Sep 12, 2026
Partially fixed on
develop— not labelling thisresolved-pending-close, because one of the four rows still diverges.Re-ran the table against a build of current
develop(8b891a5c),LC_ALL=C, in the repro directory (visible.txt+.hidden):lsrtk lson developvisible.txtvisible.txt-1visible.txtvisible.txt.,..,.hidden)-a. .. .hidden visible.txt.hidden visible.txt.and..-1a. .. .hidden visible.txt.hidden visible.txtSo the
-1-controls-hidden-entries half of this report is gone, and-ano longer has "no effect". What remains is narrower than the title:rtk ls -alists dotfiles but drops the.and..entries that nativels -aincludes.Worth deciding deliberately rather than fixing by reflex —
./..in a compacted listing are arguably noise RTK is right to drop, in which case this should be closed as intended behaviour and the omission documented. Flagging for a maintainer call.KuSh commentedon Oct 3, 2026
Fixed by #3470, shipped in v0.47.0:
rtk ls -alists hidden files,-1is accepted and changes nothing, and the output is already one entry per line, so the two problems reported here no longer happen..and..are left out of the listing on purpose. If you still see a difference from nativelson the latest release, please comment with the command and the directory contents.