gitreant

English | 日本語

Manage, inspect, and maintain multiple Git repositories from one place.

Gitreant combines “Git” with “Treant,” a mythical guardian of the forest. The name represents a tool that watches over, organizes, and maintains a forest of Git repositories.

Pronunciation: /ˈɡɪt.triːənt/ (git-ree-ant)

A web app that shows commit graphs of local git repositories side by side in a single-page app. Inspired by k1LoW/mo, it ships as a single Rust binary with an embedded React SPA.

$ gitreant                 # discover .git from the current directory
$ gitreant ../foo ../bar   # show multiple repositories at once

Running gitreant again from another directory adds that repository to the already-running server, so everything appears on the same page (single-instance behavior, like mo).

The launcher detaches by default: the server keeps running in the background and control returns to your shell. Stop it with gitreant --shutdown, or use --foreground to keep the server attached to the terminal.

Features

• Commit graphs of several local repositories on one page, in tabs and two side-by-side panes
• Commit details and diffs: the full message, signature state, changed files, and inline or side-by-side diffs with intra-line highlights
• Work in progress at a glance: uncommitted changes above HEAD, linked worktrees, and line-ending-only changes named as such
• Fetch, check out, merge, create branches, and create or delete tags from the graph, each delegated to the git CLI
• Pull request links through gh and signature verification through gpg, both optional
• One self-contained binary, a command palette, dark and light themes, and an English or Japanese UI

Every feature in detail: docs/FEATURES.md.

Install

On Windows, from WinGet:

> winget install ShortArrow.gitreant

On Debian 12 or Ubuntu 22.04 and later, amd64 or arm64, from the APT repository at pkg.shortarrow.jp (ADR 0034):

$ sudo curl -fsSL https://pkg.shortarrow.jp/apt/shortarrow-archive-keyring.gpg -o /usr/share/keyrings/shortarrow-archive-keyring.gpg
$ echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/shortarrow-archive-keyring.gpg] https://pkg.shortarrow.jp/apt stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/shortarrow.list
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install shortarrow-archive-keyring gitreant

Installing shortarrow-archive-keyring by name keeps it, and the key that verifies the repository, when gitreant is removed; later keys arrive with apt upgrade. gitreant --version checks the install. The .deb files on the GitHub Release do not install on their own, since they depend on shortarrow-archive-keyring.

Anywhere with Rust (stable), from crates.io. The crate carries the built frontend, so this needs no Node.js; on Linux it needs the Wayland client headers (libwayland-dev on Debian and Ubuntu):

$ cargo install gitreant

Every GitHub Release also carries the binaries for Windows, macOS, Linux and Termux, with a SHA256SUMS. To build from source, see docs/CONTRIBUTING.md.

Options

gitreant [PATH...]
  -p, --port <PORT>   port to listen on / connect to (default 4000); left out,
                      --shutdown, restart, refresh and open find the running
                      server
      --no-open       do not open the browser automatically
      --app           open in a chromeless window instead of a tab (needs a
                      Chromium-based browser; falls back to the ordinary
                      browser without one, and --no-open outranks it)
      --no-launcher   give the browser the page's address with the secret
                      in it, rather than a launcher file that posts the
                      secret to the page; in WSL, or where no launcher file
                      can be written, the browser opens only with it
      --foreground    run the server in the current terminal instead of detaching
      --shutdown      stop the running gitreant server and exit
      --all           with --shutdown, stop every running gitreant server

gitreant doctor       check the environment: git (required), gh and gpg
                      (optional feature enablers), and whether a server is
                      already running on the port; exits non-zero when a
                      required tool is missing. For gpg it names the one git
                      runs, set by gpg.program or found on the PATH, and
                      warns when that is Git for Windows' own
gitreant restart      restart the running server, keeping the repositories it
                      shows; a fresh process re-verifies every signature and
                      picks up a rebuilt binary
gitreant refresh      re-verify commit signatures in place, without restarting
                      (use after adding a key to your gpg keyring)
gitreant open         open the running server's page again, with its secret,
                      adding no repository
gitreant list         list the running servers, one line each: URL, pid,
                      start time, version and how many repositories each
                      shows
  --verbose           also list each server's repositories, with how and when
                      each came (at startup, from the CLI or from the browser)
  --json              print all of it as JSON
gitreant editor list  list the editors a file opens with, kept in config.toml
                      under $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gitreant (else ~/.config/gitreant)
gitreant editor add <name> <program> [args...]
                      add an editor, or replace the one of that name; {path}
                      and {line} in its arguments are filled in (on Windows,
                      name a .cmd launcher with its extension, as code.cmd)
gitreant editor remove <name>
                      remove an editor

Contributing

See docs/CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup, architecture, and testing. Planned work lives in docs/ROADMAP.md.

License

Licensed under either of the following, at your option:

• MIT License (LICENSE-MIT)
• Apache License 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE)

SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT OR Apache-2.0

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in this work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.