The path Option and :find

The problem#

You know the file is called handlers.py. You have no idea which folder it is in. So you start typing :e and guessing — src/? api/? — and a wrong guess gives you an empty buffer with the wrong name, which is worse than an error.

Try it before configuring#

:find handlers.py

E345: Can't find file "handlers.py" in path

Fair enough — Vim only looked in the current folder.

One line fixes it#

set path+=**

path is the list of places :find may look. ** means every folder below this one, however deep.

:find handlers.py

Opens src/api/handlers.py, and you never typed a folder name.

It completes too#

:find rou<Tab>       " completes to routes.py

With set wildmenu and set wildoptions=pum you get a proper popup menu of the matches.

Put set path+=** in your vimrc and :find quietly becomes how you open files.