Auto-Reload in Other Editors

This document describes how to set up automatic reloading on external file changes in common editors — and why this is often not enough in Aura Oma Mode.

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Kate (KDE)

Setup

1. Settings → Configure Kate → Open/Save → Advanced

2. Enable:

   • “Automatically reload files”

What works

• When the buffer is unchanged, Kate reloads the file immediately.

• This is sufficient for pure viewing mode.

What does not work (and why it fails in Oma Mode)

• As soon as you press a single key in the buffer (even just a space or accidental keystroke), the buffer is considered “modified”.

• From that moment on, Kate always asks on every external change:

  “The file was changed externally. Do you want to reload it?”

• In Oma Mode, the user may not be at the computer or may not see the dialog — Aura keeps writing, but the editor stays on the old version.

• Kate has no setting that silently discards unsaved buffer changes in favor of the disk version.

Bottom line: Kate is unsuitable for Oma Mode as soon as the user accidentally types in the editor.

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VS Code

Setup

In settings.json:

{
    "files.autoSave": "afterDelay",
    "files.autoSaveDelay": 1000
}

Limitations

• autoSave saves the buffer — it overwrites Aura’s changes with the local version, not the other way around.

• A prompt still appears for unsaved changes.

• No option for “disk always wins”.

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Emacs

(global-auto-revert-mode t)

Limitations

• Only reloads automatically when the buffer is unchanged.

• Asks when the buffer is modified.

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Vim / Neovim

set autoread
au FocusGained,BufEnter,CursorHold * :checktime

Limitations

• autoread only reloads when the buffer is unchanged.

• Does not overwrite a modified buffer automatically.

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CudaText (without plugin)

In user.json:

{
    "ui_notif": true,
    "ui_notif_confirm": 0
}

Limitations

• All values of ui_notif_confirm (0–4) show some form of prompt — modal or modal-less.

• There is no value that means: “Reload immediately, never ask.”

• Hence the cuda_disk_wins plugin is required.

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Overview

Editor	Auto-Reload (unchanged)	Auto-Reload (modified)	License
Kate	Yes	Always prompts	Open Source
VS Code	Yes	Always prompts	Open Source
Sublime Text	Yes	Always prompts	Proprietary
Emacs	Yes	Always prompts	Open Source
Vim	Yes	Always prompts	Open Source
CudaText (no plugin)	Yes	Always prompts	Open Source
CudaText + Disk Wins	Yes	No prompt	Open Source

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Why No Editor Can Do This Out-of-the-Box

Silently discarding unsaved changes is considered a massive data-loss bug in software development. No serious editor offers a setting “overwrite my buffer without asking”. This is correct and important — for normal developer work.

In Aura Oma Mode, however, the priority is reversed: Aura is the source of truth, and the human editor buffer is secondary. Therefore an explicit plugin intervention is needed to enforce this behavior for this specific use case.