For ctags, there is a nice trick: with the command :set tags=tags;/ Vim will look for tags file everywhere starting from the current directory up to the root. This tip provides the same "autoloading" functionality for Cscope. Just add the following to your vimrc: function! LoadCscope() let db = findfile("cscope.out", ".;") if (!empty(db)) let path = strpart(db, 0, match(db, "/cscope.out$")) set nocscopeverbose " suppress 'duplicate connection' error exe "cs add " . db . " " . path set cscopeverbose endif endfunction au BufEnter /* call LoadCscope()