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Write access to the local file system

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2026 8:47 pm
by susannecm
A few days ago, I used AI Positron to migrate a Word document to DITA. It was my first attempt to do something like this, but it worked quite nicely. In this case, the AI created the DITA bookmap and the DITA topics for me. If I remember correctly, this was done in a separate migration folder in my project.
Today, after installing version 8.1.2, I wanted to migrate a similar document. To my surprise, the planner insisted that it could not create any files on my disk because only the DITA agent could. And the DITA agent could not do it either, supposedly because I was working locally. As a workaround, it provided file names and XML code, making me the AI's assistant :shock: . What is going on here?

Re: Write access to the local file system

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2026 10:43 am
by sorin_carbunaru
Hi,

1. Technically speaking, the Planner cannot write, but it should automatically delegate to one of DITA agent or the generic Agent to do that once you accept the plan.
2. If you go to the Positron preferences, Tools & RAG page, do you have the "Enable writing content in project" check box activated? How about "Limit read/write access to"? And did the AI try to save in one of the accepted paths?
3. If the aforementioned options are enabled, you switch to the DITA Agent, and then try to create a file in an accepted path, how does it go?

All the best,
Sorin Carbunaru
Oxygen XML Editor

Re: Write access to the local file system

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2026 2:29 pm
by susannecm
Hi Sorin,
My settings were as follows:
Enable writing content in project - check box selected
Limit read/write access to ... - check box cleared
If the second check box is cleared, I would expect "no (additional) limit".
However, this doesn't seem to be the case. If the second option is deactivated, I cannot write. If I activate the second option and add a folder, the DITA agent can write to this folder.
The documentation says:
Allows you to restrict the locations where tools can read and write content. You can specify these locations as a comma-separated list of resource paths. By default, read and write access is restricted to the project directory and the directory of the current root map.
Maybe this could be clarified.
Thank you for your help
Susanne

Re: Write access to the local file system

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2026 3:49 pm
by sorin_carbunaru
I understand the confusion. I created issue OPA-5741 to try to avoid it.

The docs are right, and by default the access is limited to those 2 locations. But we should probably make that more obvious in the GUI.