XDG directories and configurable serena directory

[noirbizarre]

Hi 👋🏼

First, thanks for Serena, what a great MCP 🙏🏼

Serena doesn't seem to respect XDG base directories ($XDG_CONFIG_DIR/serena > ~/.config/serena) on Linux or Mac (more and more CLI apps are also following XDG specifications on Mac too).
It clutters the home directory, making it harder to locate and back up configuration, or to simply not store it into the home directory...

Also, it doesn't allow you to manually change this directory (or at least I haven't found it in the README), which would have permitted working around that, but it also allows you to have multiple isolated setups for different reasons (the most common being perso/pro isolation or by company isolation).

So:

• Did I miss something in the documentation allowing me to change the ~/.serena for another directory?
• Would you accept a pull request adding support for both XDG and configurable config dir?

Note

XDG is not only for config but also cache ($XDG_CACHE_DIR/serena > ~/.cache/serena) and maybe some other user directories, but I did not yet looked at it for others

[opcode81]

what a great MCP

Thanks!

Did I miss something in the documentation allowing me to change the ~/.serena for another directory?

No, you didn't miss something, there is currently no way to configure this.

Would you accept a pull request adding support for both XDG and configurable config dir?

We will discuss this internally and then get back to you. (Probably yes, but we might want to do some small refactorings along the way, too.)