⚡ GitKraft

A Git IDE written entirely in Rust — desktop GUI & terminal UI

Features · Installation · Building from Source · Architecture · Themes · Development · License

GitKraft is a pure-Rust Git IDE that ships two front-ends from a single workspace:

Both binaries share gitkraft-core, a framework-free library that wraps libgit2 via the git2 crate. Zero Git operations live in the UI layer.

GUI Layout

The desktop application starts maximised and presents a multi-pane layout. Every divider is draggable and the layout is persisted across sessions (via redb).

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  header toolbar                              │
├────────┬──────────────────┬──────────────────┤
│        │                  │                  │
│ side-  │  commit log      │  diff viewer     │
│ bar    │  (graph)         │                  │
│        │                  │                  │
├────────┴──────────────────┴──────────────────┤
│  staging area  (unstaged | staged | message) │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  status bar                                  │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────┘

TUI Layout

The terminal UI mirrors the GUI structure with a keyboard-driven interface:

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  header bar  (repo │ branch │ shortcuts)     │
├────────┬──────────────┬──────────────────────┤
│        │              │                      │
│ side-  │  commit log  │  files + diff viewer │
│ bar    │              │                      │
│        │              │                      │
├────────┴──────────────┴──────────────────────┤
│  staging area  (unstaged │ staged │ actions) │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  status bar                                  │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────┘

TUI Keyboard Shortcuts

GUI Keyboard Shortcuts

Features

• Pure Rust Git operations — all Git work goes through git2; no shelling out to git.
• Branch management — list, create, checkout, and delete branches.
• Remote branch management — checkout, delete, and inspect remote-tracking branches via right-click context menu.
• Commit log with graph visualisation — canvas-rendered DAG in the GUI, box-drawing in the TUI.
• Diff viewer — working-directory diffs, staged diffs, and per-commit diffs with syntax-highlighted hunks.
• Two-phase commit diff loading — file list appears instantly, diffs load per-file on demand for fast responsiveness.
• Commit files sidebar — both GUI and TUI show a file list when viewing multi-file commit diffs.
• Staging area — stage / unstage individual files or all at once; discard working-directory changes.
• Commit creation — write a message and commit directly from the IDE.
• Stash management — save, pop, drop, and list stash entries with optional messages.
• Remote listing & fetch — view configured remotes and fetch from the primary remote.
• Multi-tab support (GUI) — open multiple repositories in tabs, session is persisted across restarts.
• Context menus (GUI) — right-click branches and commits for checkout, push, pull, rebase, merge, reset, revert, tag creation, copy SHA, etc.
• UI zoom (GUI) — Ctrl+/Ctrl- to zoom in/out (50%–200%), persisted across sessions.
• Virtual scrolling — commit log and diff views use virtual scrolling for smooth performance with large histories.
• Interactive directory browser (TUI) — press o to browse the filesystem and open a repo, with git repo detection.
• 27 built-in colour themes — from Dracula and Nord to Catppuccin, Tokyo Night, Kanagawa, and more — persisted per-user.
• Draggable pane dividers — resize every panel; the layout is saved and restored automatically.
• Recently opened repositories — persisted list on the welcome screen for quick access.
• Starts maximised — the GUI opens full-screen by default.
• TUI for terminal/SSH use — the same core logic is available in a keyboard-driven terminal interface.

Installation

From crates.io

# Desktop GUI
cargo install gitkraft

# Terminal UI
cargo install gitkraft-tui

Pre-built binaries

Download the latest release from the GitHub Releases page.

Building from Source

Prerequisites

Clone & build

git clone https://github.com/sorinirimies/gitkraft.git
cd gitkraft

# Debug build (faster compilation)
cargo build

# Release build (optimised, LTO enabled)
cargo build --release

# Run the GUI
cargo run --release -p gitkraft

# Run the TUI
cargo run --release -p gitkraft-tui

# Run the TUI on a specific repo
cargo run --release -p gitkraft-tui -- /path/to/repo

Architecture

Workspace layout

gitkraft/
├── Cargo.toml                  ← workspace manifest
├── crates/
│   ├── gitkraft-core/          ★ shared Git logic — uses git2, no GUI/TUI deps
│   │   └── src/
│   │       ├── lib.rs
│   │       └── features/
│   │           ├── branches/    branch ops (list, create, delete, checkout)
│   │           ├── commits/     commit log, commit creation
│   │           ├── diff/        working dir diff, staged diff, commit diff
│   │           ├── graph/       commit graph visualisation
│   │           ├── log/         filtered commit search
│   │           ├── persistence/ settings & layout storage (redb)
│   │           ├── remotes/     remote listing
│   │           ├── repo/        open, init, repo info
│   │           ├── staging/     stage, unstage, discard
│   │           ├── stash/       stash save, pop, drop, list
│   │           └── theme/       27 built-in colour themes
│   │
│   ├── gitkraft-gui/           Desktop GUI application (binary: gitkraft)
│   │   └── src/
│   │       ├── main.rs
│   │       ├── lib.rs
│   │       ├── state.rs        application state
│   │       ├── message.rs      all Message variants
│   │       ├── update.rs       TEA update function
│   │       ├── view.rs         layout: header, sidebar, commit log, diff, staging, status bar
│   │       ├── theme.rs        Theme integration
│   │       ├── features/       feature-specific views & updates
│   │       └── widgets/        reusable UI components (header, dividers)
│   │
│   └── gitkraft-tui/           Terminal UI application (binary: gitkraft-tui)
│       └── src/
│           ├── main.rs
│           ├── lib.rs
│           ├── app.rs          TUI app state
│           ├── events.rs       keyboard event handler
│           ├── layout.rs       terminal layout renderer
│           ├── features/       feature-specific TUI modules
│           └── widgets/        reusable TUI widgets
│
├── scripts/                    Nushell automation scripts
│   ├── version.nu
│   ├── bump_version.nu
│   ├── check_publish.nu
│   ├── release_prepare.nu
│   ├── upgrade_deps.nu
│   ├── setup_gitea.nu
│   ├── migrate_to_gitea.nu
│   └── tests/
│       ├── runner.nu
│       ├── run_all.nu
│       └── test_*.nu
│
├── .github/workflows/          GitHub Actions CI/CD
│   ├── ci.yml
│   ├── release.yml
│   └── deps-update.yml
│
├── .gitea/workflows/           Gitea Actions CI/CD
│   ├── ci.yml
│   ├── release.yml
│   └── deps-update.yml
│
├── justfile                    Task runner (just)
├── cliff.toml                  git-cliff changelog config
├── LICENSE                     MIT
└── CHANGELOG.md

The Elm Architecture (TEA)

The GUI crate follows The Elm Architecture:

           ┌──────────────┐
     ┌────▶│    State      │─────┐
     │     │  (state.rs)   │     │
     │     └──────────────┘     │
     │                          ▼
┌─────────┐              ┌──────────┐
│  Update  │◀─────────────│   View    │
│(update.rs│  Message     │ (view.rs) │
│)         │              │           │
└─────────┘              └──────────┘

This architecture ensures a unidirectional data flow: the view never mutates state directly; it only emits Messages that the update function handles.

Crate dependency map

  gitkraft-gui ──┐
                  ├──▶ gitkraft-core ──▶ git2, redb, chrono, serde …
  gitkraft-tui ──┘

Both front-ends depend only on gitkraft-core for Git operations; neither calls git2 directly.

Themes

GitKraft ships 27 built-in colour themes. The active theme is persisted and applied to every widget automatically.

Themes are defined once in gitkraft-core and shared by both front-ends — change the theme in the GUI and the TUI will pick it up too.

Development

Task runner (just)

The project uses just as a task runner. Install it with cargo install just.

just build            # cargo build --workspace
just run              # run the GUI
just run-tui          # run the TUI
just test             # cargo test --workspace
just clippy           # clippy with -D warnings
just fmt              # auto-format all code
just check-all        # full quality gate (fmt + clippy + test + nu)
just check-release    # quality gate + release build
just install-tools    # install git-cliff and nushell
just release 0.5.0    # bump, tag, push (runs all checks first)
just release-all 0.5.0 # release to GitHub + Gitea
just push-all         # push to both remotes
just changelog        # regenerate CHANGELOG.md

Nushell scripts

The scripts/ directory contains Nushell automation scripts for versioning, release preparation, dependency upgrades, and a custom test runner:

CI/CD

Continuous integration runs on both GitHub Actions and Gitea Actions:

Dual Hosting

GitKraft is hosted on both GitHub and Gitea. Use just push-all to push to both remotes simultaneously, keeping them in sync. Release workflows run on both platforms so binaries are published to each.

Changelog

The changelog is generated with git-cliff using the configuration in cliff.toml. See CHANGELOG.md for the full history.

Running tests

# Rust tests
cargo test --workspace

# Nushell integration tests
nu scripts/tests/run_all.nu

Minimum Supported Rust Version (MSRV)

The workspace uses the Rust 2021 edition. We recommend using the latest stable toolchain.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/my-feature)
3. Make your changes and ensure cargo clippy and cargo test pass
4. Open a pull request

License

GitKraft is licensed under the MIT License.

Made with 🦀 by Sorin Irimies