# codebase-flattener
Flatten a codebase into a single file for easy LLM ingestion.
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**Features:**
- Recursively walk your project, respecting `.gitignore`, `.llmignore`, and custom ignore rules.
- Skip the output file itself to avoid self-inclusion.
- Follow or ignore symlinks via a flag.
- Overridable output filename (default: `codebase.txt`).
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## 📦 Installation
Ensure you have Rust and Cargo installed (edition 2021).
```bash
# Install from crates.io
cargo install codebase-flattener
```
Or build locally:
```bash
git clone https://github.com/youruser/codebase-flattener.git
cd codebase-flattener
cargo build --release
# The binary will be in target/release/
```
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## 🚀 Usage
```bash
# Run with defaults (respects .gitignore & .llmignore, follows symlinks)
codebase-flattener
# Add custom ignore files
codebase-flattener --ignore extra.ignore --ignore temp.ignore
# Disable all default ignore files
codebase-flattener --no-default-ignores --ignore only.ignore
# Don’t follow symlinks
codebase-flattener --no-follow
# Change the output filename
codebase-flattener --output project_dump.txt
```
By default, all files are dumped into `codebase.txt` with separators:
```
<<< FILE: path/to/file.ext >>>
<file contents>
```
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## ⚙️ Command-line Options
| `-i, --ignore <FILE>` | Append a custom ignore filename (can be used multiple times) |
| `--no-default-ignores` | Disable default `.gitignore` & `.llmignore` loading |
| `-n, --no-follow` | Don’t follow symbolic links |
| `-o, --output <FILENAME>` | Set the output file name (default: `codebase.txt`) |
| `-h, --help` | Print help information |
| `-V, --version` | Print version info |
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## 🤝 Contributing
1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (`git checkout -b feature/foo`)
3. Commit your changes (`git commit -am "Add foo"`)
4. Push to the branch (`git push origin feature/foo`)
5. Open a pull request
We welcome improvements, bug fixes, and enhanced documentation!
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## đź“ť License
Licensed under MIT See [LICENSE](LICENSE) for details.
---