New comment processing command proposal

[aweis89]

Issue

Proposing we add a new command /comments <files> which tells Aider to explicitly process the comments in those files. The motivating reasons for this are:

For plugin integration

• If a plugin is auto-starting Aider when detecting qualifying comments (as is the case with this Neovim plugin), it can tell Aider to process a file with comments written prior to Aider's startup.
• Plugins can send files with valid comments to Aider so that Aider doesn't need to watch files and search them on each write. IDEs already running tree-sitter can use it to query for comments, without needing to search the entire file, and only if it has qualifying comments can they send the command /comments <file> to Aider. (They also can use write hooks to trigger that command instead of using file watchers.)

For regular use

• Improve Aider's performance by not using --watch-files (or excluding various large files) so that Aider doesn't need to search those files on each write but instead can be told to explicitly to process those file's comments when prompted by this command.
• If Aider missed a file change and the user is in the Aider terminal, they can trigger Aider explicitly to process that file without needing to go back and re-save the file

Version and model info

No response