ghzinga

ghzinga is a small terminal UI for keeping GitHub pull requests and issues open on the side while you work.

It is not trying to be a full GitHub client. It is for maintainers who want a faster-than-the-web-UI view of the current status, comments, checks, files, and links for a PR or issue, with automatic refresh. It is similar in spirit to gh dash, but focused on a single item first instead of a dashboard list.

ghzinga is inspired by Herdr and built with Ratatui and Crossterm, so the terminal UI is interactive: click tabs and links, expand rows, scroll with the mouse wheel, drag the scrollbar, or use keyboard shortcuts.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/1078941e-f83f-4d6f-aceb-695a22015580

Install

Install from crates.io:

cargo install ghzinga

Install from a local checkout:

cargo install --path .

This installs two equivalent commands:

• gzg
• ghzinga

Usage

Open a pull request or issue:

gzg openclaw/openclaw#81834
gzg https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/pull/81834
gzg https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/issues/88499

Run gzg again from the same terminal context to restore the last ghzinga dashboard for that pane, tmux pane, Herdr pane, working tree, or named session. Use --new to start a separate saved session, --no-restore to ignore saved state for one run, or --session <name> to pick a specific saved session.

ghzinga reuses your existing GitHub CLI login through gh auth token. You can also set GH_TOKEN or GITHUB_TOKEN to override that token. Public repositories can fall back to unauthenticated GitHub data when credentials are unavailable.

What You Get

For pull requests, ghzinga shows:

• overview and conversation
• author, labels, branches, review state, and merge/check status
• activity, reviews, review comments, and linked issues or PRs
• commits
• checks and status contexts
• changed files with expandable patch context

For issues, ghzinga shows:

• overview and conversation
• author, labels, assignees, state, milestones, and projects
• timeline activity and comments
• linked issues or PRs

Interaction

The UI is built for active terminal use:

• click tabs to switch views
• click the top-right plus button, or press n, to open another PR or issue
• when multiple resources are open, click the resource tabs to switch or close them
• click GitHub issue/PR links to choose between opening here or in a new tab
• click same-resource comment links to focus the matching Activity entry
• click rows and [more] controls to expand details
• click footer actions for refresh, expand/collapse, settings, help, and quit
• scroll with the mouse wheel or keyboard
• drag the scrollbar when content is long
• press ? in the app for the full keyboard help

Common keys:

• q or Ctrl-C: quit
• r: refresh
• n: open another PR or issue in a resource tab
• Ctrl-C in the open-resource modal: clear input, then close when empty
• Tab, Shift+Tab, Left, Right: switch tabs
• Up, Down, PageUp, PageDown, Home, End: scroll
• Enter: activate the first visible link or action
• y: copy the first visible GitHub URL
• o: open the first visible GitHub URL
• s: settings
• ?: help

Configuration

The config file is:

~/.config/ghzinga/config.toml

Default config:

[ui]
theme = "default"
symbols = "emoji"
spacing = "comfortable"
width_mode = "fixed"
fixed_width = 118
scrollbar = "on-scroll"

You can change theme, symbols, spacing, width, and scrollbar behavior from the settings view inside the app.

Sessions

ghzinga saves open PR/issue tabs and UI state under:

~/.local/state/ghzinga

Cached GitHub resource snapshots are stored separately under:

~/.cache/ghzinga

Environment overrides:

• GZG_STATE_HOME: alternate session state directory
• GZG_CACHE_HOME: alternate resource cache directory
• GZG_RUNTIME_HOME: alternate runtime socket directory for live session control
• GZG_SESSION: default named session

Session commands:

gzg sessions
gzg session show <id-or-name>
gzg session rename <id-or-name> <name>
gzg session delete <id-or-name>

Control a running session from another shell:

gzg open --session <id-or-name> dutifuldev/ghzinga#29
gzg set --session <id-or-name> theme solarized
gzg set --session <id-or-name> spacing comfortable
gzg set --session <id-or-name> width-mode fixed
gzg set --session <id-or-name> fixed-width 118
gzg set --session <id-or-name> scrollbar on-scroll

If the session is running, these commands update the live TUI without stealing terminal focus. If it is not running, gzg open updates the saved session so the resource appears on the next restore.

Refresh

ghzinga refreshes automatically every 300 seconds by default. Use --refresh-seconds 0 to disable automatic refresh, or press r to refresh manually.

When a resource has more data than the normal GitHub API depth loads, ghzinga shows a full-depth action so you can fetch the rest without restarting the app.

License

MIT