redhat-developer / redhat-developer/vscode-redhat-telemetry

Respect XDG Base Directory Specification

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Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
31
Forks
39
Avg merge
9h 15m
Merged PRs (30d)
1

Description

On Linux, the Red Hat telemetry functionality creates the .redhat directory in the home directory. Most importantly, this directory contains anonymousId; see USAGE_DATA.md and https://github.com/redhat-developer/vscode-redhat-telemetry/blob/d5737dc1096f8220c2e10287e774f4dec3be45b5/src/node/fileSystemIdManager.ts#L46

This unfortunately adds to the problem of the home directory filling up with hidden dotfiles. As a better way of organizing the home directory, the XDG Base Directory Specification is widely used.

For those of us who value a clean home directory, I hope you can consider a few options:

  • Creating the redhat directory relative to an appropriate XDG Base Directory, if specified in the user environment;
  • Providing users with the option to explicitly specify the location of the redhat directory using a dedicated environment variable

Changing this would affect more projects, including but not limited to:

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with src/node/fileSystemIdManager.ts at the referenced location and review USAGE_DATA.md alongside the XDG Base Directory Specification. Define which XDG location or dedicated environment variable should control the redhat directory, then confirm the Linux telemetry behavior and related documentation reflect the decided approach.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
tooling
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
30/100

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