Configuration

Tessera works with no configuration. Everything here is optional.

What gets indexed

• Files: every file with a supported extension under the repository root. The root is the nearest ancestor containing .tessera/ or .git, or --root.
• Ignore files: .gitignore, .ignore, .tesseraignore, .git/info/exclude, and your global git excludes file are honoured, even outside a git checkout.
• Hidden files and directories (names starting with .) and symlinks are skipped.
• Always skipped: node_modules, .git, .tessera, __pycache__, virtualenvs, and tool caches. dist, build, target, out, vendor, coverage, and .next are skipped only at the repository root, so a Java package named build is still indexed.
• Skipped as minified: files named *.min.* or *.bundle.*, and files with a line over 5,000 bytes or an average line over 300 bytes.
• Skipped as too large: files over 1 MiB. The limit is configurable.

Skipped files show up as a count in tessera status.

.tessera/config.toml

[index]
max_file_bytes = 2_097_152      # default 1 MiB

[include]
paths = ["src/", "packages/api/"]   # only these path prefixes; empty = everything

[exclude]
paths = ["src/generated/"]          # path prefixes to skip
globs = ["**/*.generated.ts"]       # glob patterns to skip

[ignore]
extra = ["fixtures"]                # directory or file names to skip anywhere

tessera init writes a commented starter file.

One-off excludes

tessera index --exclude 'legacy/**' --exclude '**/*.pb.go'

Excludes passed this way are remembered, so automatic re-indexing, watch, and git hooks keep applying them. Passing --exclude again replaces the list; tessera index --reset-excludes clears it. For excludes the whole team should share, use config.toml.

Where the index lives

The default is <root>/.tessera/tessera.db. A .gitignore written next to it ignores the index but not config.toml, so the project config can be committed. Override the location with --db <file> or the TESSERA_DB environment variable. Tessera refuses to use a file that is not a Tessera index, so a mistyped --db cannot overwrite another database.

The index is a cache. It is rebuilt when a new Tessera version, a change to config.toml, or a new set of excludes could change what gets indexed. Writers take a lock on <db>.lock; a query that finds another process indexing answers from the existing index instead of waiting.