How do I prevent the router plugin from auto-filling new route files with placeholder content?

[siphosenkosindhlovu]

When I create a new .tsx file in my routes directory, the Vite plugin automatically writes a scaffold template into it (e.g. function RouteComponent() { return <div>Hello "/path"!</div> }. This conflicts with AI coding agents that create route files with their own content and I end up with save conficts.

[schiller-manuel]

we would need a way to turn this off. currently not possible (unless you switch off the dev server)

[travisbreaks]

Ran into this with AI coding agents too. The plugin has a few levers:

enableRouteGeneration: false disables the entire generator, including file scaffolding. You can toggle it with an env var so your dev server skips codegen during AI sessions:

TanStackRouterVite({
  enableRouteGeneration: process.env.TSR_DISABLE_CODEGEN !== 'true',
})

Alternatively, routeFileIgnorePrefix (default '-') tells the plugin to ignore files starting with that prefix. The agent writes to -dashboard.tsx, then renames to dashboard.tsx when done. The plugin picks up the rename as a create event and generates the route tree without overwriting content. No server restart needed.

There's also routeFileIgnorePattern if you prefer regex (e.g., '.*\\.wip$').

As @schiller-manuel noted, there's no standalone "disable scaffolding but keep route tree generation" toggle. enableRouteGeneration is all-or-nothing. The ignore prefix workflow is the most practical for AI agents since it lets the plugin keep running.