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AI Agents · Lesson

Directory Traversal and File Discovery

os.walk(), glob patterns, and filtering files by type or date.

Why Agents Need Directory Traversal

Agents often need to find files matching certain criteria — all Python files in a codebase, all CSV files in a data directory, or all recent logs. Python provides three main tools: os.walk(), Path.iterdir(), and Path.rglob(). Each has different strengths depending on how deep you need to search.

import os
from pathlib import Path

# Count all files in a directory tree
root = Path('/tmp/agent_workspace')
file_count = sum(1 for f in root.rglob('*') if f.is_file())
print(f'Found {file_count} files under {root}')

os.walk() — Recursive Directory Traversal

os.walk(root) yields a tuple of (dirpath, dirnames, filenames) for every directory in the tree. It's the classic Python approach for recursive traversal and gives you fine-grained control over which subdirectories to descend into.

import os

root = '/tmp/project'

for dirpath, dirnames, filenames in os.walk(root):
    # Skip hidden directories (like .git)
    dirnames[:] = [d for d in dirnames if not d.startswith('.')]

    print(f'In directory: {dirpath}')
    print(f'  Subdirs: {dirnames}')
    print(f'  Files: {filenames}')

    for filename in filenames:
        full_path = os.path.join(dirpath, filename)
        print(f'  File: {full_path}')

All lessons in this course

  1. Reading and Writing Files in Agent Context
  2. Directory Traversal and File Discovery
  3. File Format Handling: CSV, JSON, and TXT
  4. Safe File Operations with Error Handling
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