Adding files to org-agenda-files

[keithmantell]

Hi,

The suggested use-package declaration uses this:

(setq org-agenda-files (list org-gtd-directory))

which results in:

("~/gtd/")

2 problems for me:

• That's a directory, not a file list
• It has overwritten existing entries

Have I misunderstood?

I am now using:
(setq org-agenda-files (append org-agenda-files (directory-files-recursively org-gtd-directory "\`[^.].*\.org\'")))

[Trevoke]

Hello! You've understood most of it. "~/gtd" is a directory. It's ok for directories to be entries in `org-agenda-files`. `'("~/gtd")` is a list of entries, some of which can be directories - in this case, just one. If you already have `org-agenda-files` then you should not use a direct `setq` but something like `add-to-list` (or a setq of a list concatenation, there's many options). The important thing is that `org-gtd-directory` be an entry in `org-agenda-files`. Does this help? *For those who come after.*

…

On Mon, Jan 19, 2026 at 10:55 AM keithmantell ***@***.***> wrote: *keithmantell* created an issue (Trevoke/org-gtd.el#278) <#278> Hi, The suggested use-package declaration uses this: (setq org-agenda-files (list org-gtd-directory)) which results in: ("~/gtd/") 2 problems for me: - That's a directory, not a file list - It has overwritten existing entries Have I misunderstood? I am now using: (setq org-agenda-files (append org-agenda-files (directory-files-recursively org-gtd-directory "\`[^.].*\.org\'"))) — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#278>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAAQSSPC7ICWSMFMSWU5EI34HT465AVCNFSM6AAAAACSFUSVIKVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43ASLTON2WKOZTHAZTAMZRGEZDMNQ> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[keithmantell]

Got it - thanks!

I had missed the directory part! This gets around the problem of new files appearing in the org-gtd-directory and not being picked up immediately

So I am trying add-to-list.

[Trevoke]

Let me know if you run into any other problems :)

[keithmantell]

Just to add notes to my journey:

If I added org-gtd-directory to org-agenda-files, it objected to the undo-tree files in that directory. No problem, undo-tree is obsolete, so I removed it and the offending files (added the vundo package).

With the default org-gtd-directory as the first entry in org-agenda-files, everything works except engage , which appears empty. If I add org-gtd-tasks.org as an explicit entry in org-agenda-files (vis customize) the engage shows the tasks.

[Trevoke]

Wow, that's fascinating, thanks for the update. I'll have to explore how undo-tree might break these things.
As for the org-agenda-files setting, I think there might be a timing issue in the configuration (you can't set org-gtd-directory and then set org-agenda-files in the same use-package config section, you have to use :init for the former and :config for the latter).
And then of course, if you set org-agenda-files separately, then you have to make adjustments to not overwrite the value somewhere.

If you are up and running now, let me know and we can close this issue, and I can investigate async.

[keithmantell]

This works for me:

(add-to-list 'org-agenda-files org-gtd-directory)
Though I had to add org-gtd-tasks.org too (to get engage to show the tasks)

NB: I also got the following but I am not exactly sure when it occurred
⛔ Warning (org-gtd): org-gtd-refile-to-any-target' is deprecated as of 4.0.0. Set it to nil and customize org-gtd-refile-prompt-for-types' instead.

Happy for this to be closed.

[keithmantell]

Or this:

(add-to-list 'org-agenda-files org-gtd-directory)
(add-to-list 'org-agenda-files (concat org-gtd-directory
"org-gtd-tasks.org"))