Path set minimal covering

path-set-minimal-covering · version 1.0.0 · File paths (lexical) · free, no key needed

Find the minimal covering set of paths by collapsing child paths when an ancestor path is already in the set.

Use when you need to: minimal covering set · collapse redundant paths · ancestor path filter.

Supported

• minimal covering set
• collapse redundant paths
• ancestor path filter

Not supported

• stat file
• filesystem access

Behavior

• Remove any path that is a descendant of another path already in the set. covering: minimal subset such that every original path is either in covering or is a descendant of a path in covering. removed: count of removed redundant paths. Paths in covering maintain their relative input order.

Input

• paths (array of string, required): min items 0; max items 10000
• format (one of "posix", "windows", "auto", optional)

Output

• covering (array of string, optional)
• removed (integer, optional)
• format (string, optional)

Limits

• max paths: 10000
• max path bytes: 4096

Example

Request input:

{
  "paths": [
    "/app",
    "/app/src",
    "/app/src/index.ts",
    "/other/file.ts"
  ]
}

Response:

{
  "result": {
    "covering": [
      "/app",
      "/other/file.ts"
    ],
    "removed": 2,
    "format": "posix"
  }
}

How to call it

MCP

Connect https://computefirst.net/mcp (setup), then call execute with:

{
  "id": "path-set-minimal-covering",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "input": {
    "paths": [
      "/app",
      "/app/src",
      "/app/src/index.ts",
      "/other/file.ts"
    ]
  }
}

HTTP (no key)

curl -X POST https://computefirst.net/v1/tools/path-set-minimal-covering/versions/1.0.0/execute \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"paths":["/app","/app/src","/app/src/index.ts","/other/file.ts"]}'

The machine-readable contract is at /v1/tools/path-set-minimal-covering/versions/1.0.0.

CLI

node cli.mjs run path-set-minimal-covering 1.0.0 --input input.json --base-url https://computefirst.net

Get the client at /clients/cli/.

Related tools

• Path set glob filter: Filter an array of paths against glob patterns with inclusion and exclusion rules lexically without filesystem access.
• Path set ignore filter: Filter paths against gitignore-style rule lines (negation, comments, directory trailing slashes) lexically.
• Path set classify: Classify an array of file paths by file extension, depth histogram, and path format.
• Path set dedupe: Deduplicate an array of paths based on lexical equivalence while preserving first or last seen order.
• Path set difference: Compute the set difference (A \ B) of two path collections using lexical path equivalence.
• Path set hierarchy tree: Transform a flat array of file paths into a nested deterministic directory tree structure.