differ_cli 1.0.0

Syntactic diff viewer with persistent line-level annotations
differ_cli-1.0.0 is not a library.

differ

A TUI diff viewer with persistent annotations. Drop-in replacement for git diff with the ability to annotate code changes.

Features

  • Git-compatible CLI - accepts same arguments as git diff
  • Interactive TUI with vim-style navigation
  • Persistent annotations stored in SQLite
  • Full file expansion - view entire file with changes highlighted
  • Side-by-side view (optional)
  • Export annotations to Markdown/JSON for AI context

Installation

Requires Rust. Then:

./install.sh

This builds the binary, installs it to ~/.local/bin, and adds it to your PATH.

Git Setup

Add to your ~/.gitconfig:

[alias]
    d = ! /path/to/differ diff
    ds = ! /path/to/differ diff --staged

Then use git d instead of git diff.

Usage

differ diff                    # unstaged changes (like git diff)
differ diff --staged           # staged changes (like git diff --staged)
differ diff HEAD               # working tree vs HEAD
differ diff main..feature      # between branches
differ diff HEAD~3..HEAD       # last 3 commits
differ diff -- src/            # filter by path

Annotations

# In TUI: press 'a' to add annotation at current line

# CLI commands
differ add -f src/main.rs -l 42 "needs refactoring"
differ list
differ export                  # markdown to stdout
differ export -f json          # JSON format
differ clear                   # clear all annotations

Keybindings

Navigation

Key Action
j/k Move up/down
n/N Next/prev file (or chunk in expanded mode)
]/[ Next/prev change
Ctrl+d/u Half page down/up
g/G Go to top/bottom

View

Key Action
x Expand/collapse file (full file view)
s Toggle side-by-side view
c Toggle annotation visibility

Annotations

Key Action
a Add annotation
e Edit annotation
d Delete annotation
t Toggle type (comment/todo)

Other

Key Action
? Help
q Quit

Config

~/.config/differ/config.toml:

side_by_side = false
context_lines = 3
show_annotations = true

License

MIT