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The advice to "limit the number of files in the chat" seems to be a bit outdated #3790

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@DinoChiesa

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@DinoChiesa

I have seen in the documentation a statement that it is best to not add "too many files" into the chat, because the backend LLM tends to get confused. Also in the aider terminal, I have seen a warning like

Warning: it's best to only add files that need changes to the chat.
https://aider.chat/docs/troubleshooting/edit-errors.html

In my experience using Google Gemini 2.5 exp, the LLM has never gotten confused and so these warnings seem to be unwarranted. I concede that this is a relatively simple personal project: ~60 files including Java, Typescript, HTML, CSS, and all the other supporting files. Maybe 4000 loc (from cloc). Even though this is a relatively small, project, aider issues these warnings.

Is it possible that the context window limits on older LLMs has led to this advice from aider, and it is not always appropriate using the most recent models?

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