How to reuse an open chat buffer when using the CodeCompanionChat command?

[paulodiovani]

When I run the :CodeCompanionChat command, it always opens a new chat buffer.

I want to be able to reuse the existing chat buffer, if it is open, to continue the conversation.

This is more useful when we are selecting code to add to the context. The other way around is to 1. yank the text, 2. move to chat window, 3. paste the text.

[olimorris]

https://codecompanion.olimorris.dev/getting-started#list-of-commands

[olimorris]

:CodeCompanionChat Toggle is likely what you're after

[paulodiovani]

:CodeCompanionChat Toggle is likely what you're after

Not really.

:CodeCompanionChat Toggle closes the chat window, if open, or reopen if not, but it never pastes selection. What I want is:

• Move to existing chat window, if it is opened (similar to $ C-W W)
• Yank current selection, if any, and paste into chat window

Reason

I usually keep a conversation in the chat window, while asking for help when needed for small tasks -- With LLMs in general, this is much more productive than asking for longer tasks all at once. -- This is also useful by keeping the previous selection of tools, MCPs, and variables.

However, I often need to provide extra context to the LLM by selecting text. This works for new chats, as CodeCompanion yanks the text and past in the chat window, but it does not reuse existing chat window neither keep the conversation this way.

In comparison, CopilotChat.nvim used to work in a similar way (although it does not explicitly paste the text, it uses current selection as context).

What I do today

My current approach is to manually yank selected text (y), then move to the chat window ($ C-w w), and past it there (p), but this is quite annoying because I also need to add a code block with triple `.

I can define a function to do that, but I wanted to know if CodeCompanion has a better way of doing this?

[paulodiovani]

I just noticed that :CodeCompanionChat Add does almost what I wanted.

• It pastes selected text into existing chat window
• It reopens the chat buffer, if it exists, or creates a new one

The only minor caveat is that it does not move the cursor to the chat window, if it is already open. But that is fine.
It also includes a quite useless text before pasting, but I suppose it is ok.

I'll try to update my mappings to use this command to see if it fit my needs.

Thanks for now. 👍

[paulodiovani]

Ok, at first try this worked better than I expected. :)

Here is the mappings' config for my LazyVim module:

  keys = {
    { "<Leader>cn", "<Cmd>DarkRoomReplaceRight CodeCompanionChat<CR>",        mode = { "n", "v" } },
    { "<Leader>cc", "<Cmd>DarkRoomReplaceRight CodeCompanionChat Toggle<CR>", mode = { "n" } },
    { "<Leader>cc", "<Cmd>DarkRoomReplaceRight CodeCompanionChat Add<CR>",    mode = { "v" } },
  },

This will use Toggle on normal mode, or Add, in visual mode, when I type <Leader>cc. I have also included a <Leader>cn mapping to open new chats.

Since I'm using DarkRoomReplaceRight (from paulodiovani/darkroom.nvim) to replace the window, it also always move the cursor.