git-surgeon-0.1.1 is not a library.

git-surgeon

Surgical, non-interactive git hunk control for AI agents.

Without hunk-level staging, an AI agent that needs to commit two independent changes in the same file has to edit one change out, commit, then restore it. git-surgeon lets the agent stage each hunk separately without gymnastics.

Quick start

1. Install

# Shell
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/raine/git-surgeon/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

# Cargo
cargo install git-surgeon

# Homebrew
brew install raine/git-surgeon/git-surgeon

2. Install the Claude Code plugin

# Register the plugin source
claude plugin marketplace add raine/git-surgeon
# Install the skill that teaches Claude Code to use git-surgeon
claude plugin install git-surgeon@git-surgeon

3. Use it

Ask Claude Code to make granular commits. It will use git-surgeon automatically to stage individual hunks instead of entire files.

Commands

hunks — List hunks in the diff
show — Show full diff for a specific hunk
stage — Stage hunks by ID
unstage — Unstage hunks by ID
discard — Discard working tree changes for hunks
fixup — Fold staged changes into an earlier commit
undo — Reverse-apply hunks from a commit

`hunks`

Lists all hunks with their IDs, file paths, function context, change counts, and a preview of changed lines.

# List unstaged hunks
git-surgeon hunks

# List staged hunks
git-surgeon hunks --staged

# Filter to a specific file
git-surgeon hunks --file src/main.rs

# List hunks from a specific commit
git-surgeon hunks --commit HEAD
git-surgeon hunks --commit abc1234

Example output

a1b2c3d src/main.rs fn handle_request (+3 -1)
  -    let result = process(input);
  +    let result = match process(input) {
  +        Ok(v) => v,
  +        Err(e) => return Err(e),
  +    };

e4f5678 src/lib.rs (+1 -0)
  +use std::collections::HashMap;

Each line shows: <hunk-id> <file> [function context] (+additions -deletions)

`show`

Shows the full diff (header + all lines) for a single hunk. Each line is prefixed with a 1-based line number for use with --lines.

git-surgeon show a1b2c3d

# Show a hunk from a specific commit
git-surgeon show a1b2c3d --commit HEAD

Example output

@@ -1,4 +1,6 @@ fn main
1: context
2:-deleted line
3:+added line
4: context

Searches both unstaged and staged diffs when no --commit is specified.

`stage`

Stages one or more hunks by ID. Equivalent to selectively answering "y" in git add -p.

git-surgeon stage a1b2c3d
git-surgeon stage a1b2c3d e4f5678

# Stage only lines 5-30 of a hunk
git-surgeon stage a1b2c3d --lines 5-30

`unstage`

Unstages one or more previously staged hunks, moving them back to the working tree.

git-surgeon unstage a1b2c3d
git-surgeon unstage a1b2c3d e4f5678

# Unstage only lines 5-30 of a hunk
git-surgeon unstage a1b2c3d --lines 5-30

`discard`

Discards working tree changes for specific hunks. This reverse-applies the hunks, effectively running git checkout -p non-interactively.

git-surgeon discard a1b2c3d

# Discard only lines 5-30 of a hunk
git-surgeon discard a1b2c3d --lines 5-30

Warning: This permanently removes uncommitted changes for the specified hunks.

`fixup`

Folds currently staged changes into an earlier commit. Uses git commit --amend for HEAD, or an autosquash rebase for older commits. Unstaged changes are preserved via --autostash.

# Stage some hunks, then fixup an earlier commit
git-surgeon stage a1b2c3d
git-surgeon fixup abc1234

# Fixup HEAD (equivalent to git commit --amend --no-edit)
git-surgeon fixup HEAD

If the rebase hits a conflict, the repo is left in the conflict state for manual resolution (git rebase --continue or git rebase --abort).

`undo`

Reverse-applies hunks from a specific commit onto the working tree. Useful for selectively reverting parts of a previous commit without reverting the entire commit.

# List hunks from the commit to find IDs
git-surgeon hunks --commit HEAD

# Undo specific hunks
git-surgeon undo a1b2c3d --from HEAD
git-surgeon undo a1b2c3d e4f5678 --from HEAD~3

# Undo only lines 2-10 of a hunk
git-surgeon undo a1b2c3d --from HEAD --lines 2-10

The changes appear as unstaged modifications in the working tree. Fails gracefully if context lines have changed since the commit (the patch no longer applies cleanly).

How hunk IDs work

IDs are 7-character hex strings derived from SHA-1 of the file path and hunk content (the actual +/-/context lines, excluding the @@ header). This means:

IDs are stable across line shifts — adding lines above a hunk doesn't change its ID
IDs are deterministic — the same content always produces the same ID
Collisions get a -2, -3 suffix (e.g., a1b2c3d-2)

Typical AI agent workflow

# 1. Agent makes changes to multiple files
# 2. Review what changed
git-surgeon hunks

# 3. Stage only the hunks related to feature A
git-surgeon stage a1b2c3d e4f5678

# 4. Commit feature A
git commit -m "implement feature A"

# 5. Stage remaining hunks for feature B
git-surgeon stage f6g7h8i
git commit -m "implement feature B"

Example: splitting a hunk across commits

A file has two unrelated changes (pagination + soft-delete filtering) that git groups into a single hunk. The agent uses show to see line numbers, then --lines to stage only the pagination part:

❯ Commit the changes separately

⏺ Bash(git diff)
  ⎿  diff --git i/users.py w/users.py
     index c3c39df..24929a5 100644
     --- i/users.py
     +++ w/users.py
     @@ -1,13 +1,17 @@
      import json

     -def list_users(db):
     +def list_users(db, page=1, per_page=50):
          """Return all active users."""
     -    users = db.query("SELECT * FROM users WHERE active = 1")
     -    return users
     +    offset = (page - 1) * per_page
     +    users = db.query("SELECT * FROM users WHERE active = 1 LIMIT ? OFFSET ?", per_page, offset)
     +    total = db.query("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM users WHERE active = 1")[0]
     +    return {"users": users, "total": total, "page": page}

      def get_user(db, user_id):
          """Fetch a single user by ID."""
     -    user = db.query("SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ?", user_id)
     +    user = db.query("SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ? AND deleted_at IS NULL", user_id)
     +    if not user:
     +        return None
          return user

⏺ There are two logical changes here: pagination for list_users and
  soft-delete filtering + null handling for get_user. Let me commit them
  separately using git-surgeon.

⏺ Skill(git-surgeon)
  ⎿  Successfully loaded skill

⏺ Bash(git-surgeon hunks)
  ⎿  64ba255 users.py (+8 -4)
       -def list_users(db):
       +def list_users(db, page=1, per_page=50):
       -    users = db.query("SELECT * FROM users WHERE active = 1")
       ... (+8 more lines)

⏺ Only one hunk. Let me see the full diff with line numbers to split it.

⏺ Bash(git-surgeon show 64ba255)
  ⎿  @@ -1,13 +1,17 @@
      1: import json
      2:
      3:-def list_users(db):
      4:+def list_users(db, page=1, per_page=50):
     ... +15 lines (ctrl+o to expand)

⏺ Bash(git-surgeon stage 64ba255 --lines 1-11)
  ⎿  64ba255

⏺ Bash(git commit -m "add pagination to list_users")
  ⎿  [feature-users e81ede5] add pagination to list_users
      1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

⏺ Bash(git add users.py && git commit -m "filter soft-deleted users in get_user")
  ⎿  [feature-users de99d59] filter soft-deleted users in get_user
      1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

Requirements

Git 2.0+
Rust (for building from source)

git-surgeon 0.1.1

git-surgeon

Quick start

1. Install

2. Install the Claude Code plugin

3. Use it

Commands

hunks

Example output

show

Example output

stage

unstage

discard

fixup

undo

How hunk IDs work

Typical AI agent workflow

Example: splitting a hunk across commits

Requirements

`hunks`

`show`

`stage`

`unstage`

`discard`

`fixup`

`undo`