See tip 804 for the correct way to do upward tag searches. There are several "local vimrc" plugins available which are probably a better solution for a directory-specific .vimrc file: * localvimrc which sources all (or configurable number of) .lvimrc files (configurable name) from the buffer's directory up to the root. * local_vimrc which sources all _vimrc_local.vim files from $HOME to current buffer's directory * local configuration which sources a .lvimrc file in the buffer's directory. Documentation is not clear whether/how far an upward search is performed. * perdirvimrc which sources files of several different names, starting at the root directory (or home directory, this is not made clear) and progressing to the current working directory (or the buffer's directory, thi