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Open File Explorer from Settings → File Explorer.
Available to Admin and Context Admin roles only. Editing also requires a connected context repository, either connected from the UI or supplied by a self-hosted deployment through NAO_CONTEXT_SOURCE=git. Until then, every file is read-only.
New to editing context files? The Contributor Guide covers what belongs where, which files are safe to edit, and how the agent finds what you write.

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Live context and your File Explorer worktree

The live context and File Explorer serve different purposes:
  • Live context is the version of the files currently used by the agent.
  • File Explorer uses a separate, editable Git worktree for each user.
Saving in File Explorer changes only your worktree. It does not immediately change what the agent sees. Your branch, commits, and uncommitted changes belong to your worktree and are never overwritten by a live context pull. Similarly, clicking Pull latest in Settings → Git updates the live context first. When it is safe, nao updates File Explorer worktrees automatically.

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Browse

Search covers file contents as well as names, and multi-word searches match in any order. Results truncate after 5 seconds of loading or 200 files searched. When you open a result that matched on content, nao jumps to the match and highlights it. Turn off file-content search if your context repository is large. The content of files over 1 MB, non-UTF-8 files, .git, .env, and .naoignore is not searched. .git and .env are not browsable or writable. Markdown files open as rendered pages. Click Source to put the raw text beside the page and edit with a live preview. nao remembers whether you keep it open. Each file also shows an estimated token count, so you can see what a context file costs the agent before deciding to split it. When you open the project-root RULES.md, Preview as lets you select one or more User Groups. The preview always includes All Users and renders conditional blocks for the selected memberships. This selector appears only for the root RULES.md, because other files do not support conditional group blocks.
File Explorer previewing conditional RULES.md content for selected User Groups

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Edit

Saving (Cmd+S) writes to your private worktree, not to the live context files used by the agent. Your team does not see your changes until your pull or merge request is merged and the live context is updated.

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Keep File Explorer up to date

When the live context moves ahead of your worktree and nao cannot update it automatically, an update icon appears in the Git panel. Click it to Update File Explorer. Updating switches File Explorer to the repository’s default branch and loads the latest live context. Existing feature branches and commits remain unchanged.
If File Explorer has uncommitted changes, nao will not update the worktree. Commit or discard those changes first, then click the update icon again.
You can also open a diff by clicking a changed file in the pull history under Settings → Git. Depending on the state of your worktree, nao might ask you to update File Explorer first.

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Commit and open a pull request

Saved edits collect in the Git panel under the file tree, where you can review the changes and choose which files to commit.
Discarding changes permanently removes uncommitted edits.
Commits are authored as you, with nao as co-author. Committing from the default branch creates another branch so that pushing creates a pull or merge request for review. The first push from a branch opens a review request. Later pushes update that same request rather than opening another. After the request is merged, update the live context through a redeploy, a scheduled sync, or Pull latest in Settings → Git.

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Why a file is read-only

When a file cannot be edited, nao explains why.