[Enhancement]: Hide "Attach Files" from sidebar using librechat.yaml

[espenhk]

What features would you like to see added?

We would like to simplify down the interface for our users, and to do so we would like to hide the Attach Files portion of the sidebar. We still want to keep the ability for a user to upload a file and use it in a specific chat. Essentially, have a way of hiding this part from the sidebar:

The aim is to not have users start building file storage in another location, as opposed to keeping them where they should be kept. We'd rather prefer they upload a file again and again to add it to a specific chat, than the drawbacks that comes with essentially giving them a messy file storage area.

We are managing file retention settings at the storage level (Blob Storage), so eventually the Attach Files section would either get filled with references to files that no longer exist, or things would start "disappearing" for users that use that part of the sidebar. We want the files to get removed, but preferably that should just happen under the hood with a restrictive retention policy that cleans things away on behalf of our users (governance reasons). Exposing the file management area to our users risks creating the expectation that those files will just stick around, causing them to use it as an extra drive with later potential for frustrations when things disappear.

More details

Disabling + hiding the prompts feature is done via librechat.yaml using the prompts parameter, for instance like so:

interface:
  prompts: false

The request is to add a similar config for Attach Files, i.e. removing that part of the interface. Looks like this is the part where the check is made to see if the Prompts section should show up:

LibreChat/client/src/hooks/Nav/useSideNavLinks.ts

Lines 39 to 42 in e710a12

	const hasAccessToPrompts = useHasAccess({
	permissionType: PermissionTypes.PROMPTS,
	permission: Permissions.USE,
	});

and this portion has an if check around the component:

LibreChat/client/src/hooks/Nav/useSideNavLinks.ts

Lines 109 to 117 in e710a12

	if (hasAccessToPrompts) {
	links.push({
	title: 'com_ui_prompts',
	label: '',
	icon: MessageSquareQuote,
	id: 'prompts',
	Component: PromptsAccordion,
	});
	}

Similarly for the files panel, there is no if check and no parameter:

LibreChat/client/src/hooks/Nav/useSideNavLinks.ts

Lines 144 to 150 in e710a12

	links.push({
	title: 'com_sidepanel_attach_files',
	label: '',
	icon: AttachmentIcon,
	id: 'files',
	Component: FilesPanel,
	});

There could definitely be other portions of the code relevant for this change, though.

Which components are impacted by your request?

UI

Pictures

No response

Code of Conduct

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[Fahleen1]

I'd like to work!

[danny-avila]

The aim is to not have users start building file storage in another location, as opposed to keeping them where they should be kept. We'd rather prefer they upload a file again and again to add it to a specific chat, than the drawbacks that comes with essentially giving them a messy file storage area.

We are managing file retention settings at the storage level (Blob Storage), so eventually the Attach Files section would either get filled with references to files that no longer exist, or things would start "disappearing" for users that use that part of the sidebar. We want the files to get removed, but preferably that should just happen under the hood with a restrictive retention policy that cleans things away on behalf of our users (governance reasons). Exposing the file management area to our users risks creating the expectation that those files will just stick around, causing them to use it as an extra drive with later potential for frustrations when things disappear.

Files can't be be uploaded from this panel, this is only used to reference previously uploaded files. I'm implementing file retention and storage limit settings native to the app within the next month if this is the concern.

[espenhk]

I'm aware, file retention settings for non-temporary chats would be a useful feature. But with using Azure Blob Storage as the storage layer we'd need to have a retention policy there anyway (for governance reasons), so not having retention settings in Librechat isn't an issue for us in itself.

It becomes an issue due to the Attach Files section of the sidebar, though, since that will show files that no longer exist.

I did a quick test by yanking some files from Blob Storage: what appears to happen is they still show up in the sidebar, so I can still attach them to a conversation, but any chat response using that "ghost file" will just say that it can't find any info. I was hoping the list would just update with what is actually in Blob Storage, but probably some caching somewhere in between here. (A quick test was all I had time for, might be that they would be gone the next day or something - unsure about the underlying details here.)

This means a user will have an expectation that their files persist in that section (which they don't when we have our retention policy in place), which opens the possibility of them thinking they can just use it as a place to dump their files. The files appearing to still be there makes the issue worse, because they don't even notice they're gone. We want our users to keep their files in whatever designated place they have for file storage (say, SharePoint areas), and any uploaded file to be used in that chat and quickly be deleted (probably max 7 days retention to allow some re-use of a chat session).

All this would be solved if I could hide the whole section from the sidebar. Users could still upload files in a chat (the button below the text area), but aside from re-using them in that chat they would be gone, and once the retention policy kicks in the file would be unusable even in that chat. Users having to re-upload the same file each time isn't a concern, we'd prefer that behavior to "oh hey nice I have another Google Drive".