gitpad

A Git log & branch manager for the terminal.

Website & interactive demo: gitpad.jinhyo.dev (한국어)

gitpad puts the whole picture on one screen: a branch tree on the left, a colored commit graph in the middle, the changed files and commit details on the right — with right-click (or Enter) context menus for checkout, merge, rebase, cherry-pick, revert, reset, branch/tag creation, and a built-in diff viewer.

_{Every recording below comes from a synthetic repository generated by scripts/demo-repo — the authors, messages and history are fictional.}

Features

Log, graph & branches

Commit graph with lanes and ref chips, a branch tree with ahead/behind counters, and the changed files and details of the selected commit — plus GitHub check status (✓ ✗ ◌) next to every commit when a token is available.

Context menus

enter or right-click on any commit or branch: checkout, cherry-pick, revert, reset (soft / mixed / hard), new branch or tag, merge, rebase, push, delete.

Commit workspace & hunk staging

Check files — or individual hunks in the diff preview — write a multi-line message with history recall, and commit or commit & push. Only what you checked is committed; the rest stays in the working tree.

Interactive rebase

Pick, reword, edit, squash, fixup, drop and reorder from the log. Rewords are applied without opening an editor; conflicts hand over to the resolver.

Conflict resolution

Ours, theirs or both per conflict block — the discarded side is crossed out — then save, mark resolved and continue the merge or rebase.

Push dialog

See exactly which commits will be pushed, get warned when the branch is behind, toggle force-with-lease or tags.

Command palette

ctrl+k lists every action for the current selection; type to filter, enter to run.

Undo

u walks back the last commit, rebase, reset, checkout or deletion — and tells you what it is about to do first.

Search & branch picker

One box for messages, authors and hashes, and a type-to-filter branch picker.

Install

macOS — Homebrew

brew tap jinhyo-dev/gitpad https://github.com/jinhyo-dev/gitpad
brew install --cask gitpad

Debian / Ubuntu — apt

curl -fsSL https://jinhyo-dev.github.io/gitpad/apt/key.gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/gitpad.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/gitpad.gpg] https://jinhyo-dev.github.io/gitpad/apt stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gitpad.list
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install gitpad

.rpm and .apk packages are attached to every release.

Windows — Scoop

scoop bucket add gitpad https://github.com/jinhyo-dev/gitpad
scoop install gitpad

Plain archives for every platform are on the releases page.

Go

go install github.com/jinhyo-dev/gitpad@latest

Then, inside any repository:

gitpad            # current directory
gitpad ~/src/app  # explicit path

gitpad needs a git binary on PATH. It shells out to your git, so hooks, credential helpers, GPG signing and every .gitconfig setting behave exactly as on the command line.

Layout

Pane	Content
Branches	HEAD, Local (grouped by /), Remote (per remote), Tags — with ahead/behind counters
Log	Commit graph, author, date, CI status (✓ ✗ ◌), subject, ref chips; an Uncommitted changes row on top when the tree is dirty
Changes	Files changed by the selected commit (or the working tree), as a compacted directory tree
Details	Full message, hash, author, date, refs

The search box matches commit messages and author names; branch and path filters sit next to it. Typing a hash prefix jumps straight to that commit.

The header shows the gitpad logo as an inline image in terminals that support the iTerm2 or Kitty graphics protocols (iTerm2, WezTerm, Kitty, Ghostty, Warp) and a text mark elsewhere. GITPAD_LOGO=text|off|iterm|kitty overrides the detection.

Keys

Key	Action
ctrl+k	command palette — type to find any action (global + selected commit / branch / file)
tab 1 2 3 h l	switch pane
j k g G ctrl+d ctrl+u	move / page
enter m / right-click	context menu (commit, branch, file)
space	fold / unfold tree nodes
← →	fold / unfold; on a leaf (or nothing left to fold) move to the previous / next pane
/	search message, author or hash · A all branches ↔ current · esc clear
↑ / ↓	past the top of a pane → search bar · past the last file → Details pane
↑ / ↓ in a diff	jump to the next / previous change block · shift+↑↓ scroll by line · n / p next / prev file
← / → in the filter bar	move between the search box and the Branch chip; enter on the chip opens a type-to-filter branch picker, esc clears the branch filter
c / C	checkout (branches) · commit workspace (elsewhere / anywhere)
space / a	check a file / all files for commit (local changes)
s	show branch in log (branches)
d	delete branch/tag (branches) · discard file (local files)
H	show the file's history in the log
o / O	open the file with the OS default app (images, PDFs, docs — a commit's version is extracted) / reveal it in the file manager
i	interactive rebase from the selected commit
u	undo the last history-changing operation
x	resolve merge conflicts
y	copy hash / path / name
f p P	fetch · pull chooser · push dialog
v	new version tag (patch / minor / major) + push
ctrl+s ctrl+p	commit · commit & push (in the commit workspace)
`	console: every git command gitpad ran, with output
r	refresh (the view also auto-refreshes when the repository changes)
?	help · q quit

Mouse: click to select, double-click to open, right-click for the menu, wheel to scroll — in any terminal that reports mouse events (iTerm2, Terminal.app, Warp, kitty, WezTerm, IDE terminals…).

Commit actions

Checkout revision · New branch/tag here · Cherry-pick · Revert · Reset (soft/mixed/hard) · Undo last commit · per-branch submenu (checkout, merge into current, rebase current onto, push, rename, delete) · Copy hash · Open in browser.

CI status

When origin points at GitHub and a token is available (GH_TOKEN, GITHUB_TOKEN, or a logged-in gh CLI), every commit shows its combined check status — ✓ passed, ✗ failed, ◌ running — fetched in batches through the GraphQL API and refreshed while checks are running. The Details pane lists the individual checks with durations; Open checks in browser is in the commit menu. Other hosts (GitLab, Gitea…) are planned.

Commit workspace (c / C)

The log pane turns into a commit view: a checklist of changed files grouped into Changes and Unversioned files, a multi-line message editor, and Commit / Commit & Push buttons; the right column previews the diff of the highlighted file.

• enter (or space) checks a file — or a whole folder / group — and a checks everything. tab, 1 2 3 or → move between the file list, the message and the diff preview.
• Hunk staging: in the diff preview ↑/↓ move between hunks and space checks or unchecks the current one (a toggles the whole file); a partially checked file shows [~] with its hunk count. Only the checked hunks are committed — the rest stays in the working tree, like git add -p. Tracked changes are checked by default, unversioned files are not.
• Checkboxes are gitpad's own selection: the index is not touched until you commit, and then only the checked files are committed (git commit --only -- <files>).
• tab moves to the message; ↑ on the first line recalls your recent commit messages; ctrl+s commits, ctrl+p commits and opens the push dialog.

Interactive rebase (i)

Select a commit in the log and press i (or Interactive rebase from here… in its menu): every commit from there up to HEAD opens as an editable plan. p r e s f d set pick / reword / edit / squash / fixup / drop, shift+↑↓ reorder, enter opens the row menu, ctrl+s starts after a confirmation. Rewords are applied without opening an editor; conflicts or edit stops show the REBASING badge with Continue / Abort in the changes menu, and the old history stays reachable as ORIG_HEAD.

Conflict resolution (x)

When a merge, rebase, cherry-pick or revert stops on conflicts, gitpad says so and x (or enter on a conflicted file) opens the resolver: the file with every <<<<<<< block highlighted — ours in blue, theirs in purple, the diff3 base when present. Per block, o keeps ours, t theirs, b / B both in either order, O / T decide every block at once; ↑↓ move between blocks. ctrl+s writes the file and marks it resolved, moves on to the next conflicted file, and offers to continue the operation once all are done.

Undo (u)

Every history-changing operation gitpad performs — commit, rebase, reset, cherry-pick, revert, merge, pull, checkout, branch or tag deletion — records where HEAD was. u shows what undoing the last one would do and reverts it: commits are undone with reset --soft (the changes stay staged), rewrites with reset --keep (refused rather than overwriting local edits), switches by checking the previous branch out again, deletions by re-creating the ref. The stack lives for the session; git's reflog remains the safety net beyond that.

Push dialog (P)

Shows the target (main → origin/main, or the upstream that will be created), the list of commits that will be sent, a warning when the branch is behind its upstream, and Force with lease / Push tags toggles.

Tags & releases (v)

v proposes the next patch / minor / major version based on your latest vX.Y.Z tag, asks for an optional annotation (annotated tag when given, lightweight otherwise), creates the tag on HEAD and offers to push it right away — which is all a tag-driven release pipeline needs. Tags in the Branches pane have Push tag / Delete tag on origin actions, and any commit's menu has New tag here….

Pull (p)

A small chooser — Pull (merge), Pull (rebase), Fetch only — that remembers your last choice and defaults to pull.rebase from your config.

Working tree actions

Stage/unstage · Stash / unstash · Discard · per-file diff and discard · Continue/abort an in-progress merge, rebase, cherry-pick or revert.

Destructive operations (hard reset, force push, discard, branch deletion) always ask for confirmation.

Development

make test        # unit + integration tests (spins up a temporary repository)
make snapshot    # render one frame as plain text for layout debugging
make build       # ./gitpad
make demo-repo   # synthetic ~400-commit repository in /tmp/gitpad-demo
make media       # re-record docs/media/*.gif + docs/screenshots/*.png with vhs
make release-check  # validate .goreleaser.yaml

Releases are cut by pushing a tag: git tag v0.1.0 && git push origin v0.1.0. The release workflow builds the binaries and packages, commits the Homebrew cask (Casks/) and Scoop manifest (bucket/) back to main, and publishes the apt repository to the gh-pages branch — pull main after a release.

Structure:

main.go                 entry point (flags, snapshot mode)
internal/git            git CLI wrapper: log/refs/status/diff parsing, actions
internal/graph          commit-graph lane layout (one row per commit)
internal/ui             bubbletea model: panels, menus, dialogs, diff viewer
internal/ui/theme       palette & styles (Catppuccin-inspired, light fallbacks)
internal/ui/overlay     ANSI-aware compositing for popups (CJK-width safe)
site/                   website (Vite+ · React · Tailwind, EN/KO, interactive demo)
scripts/demo-repo       generator for the anonymous demo repository (screenshots)
scripts/apt-*.sh        apt repository signing key + index builder (release workflow)
docs/tapes/*.tape       vhs scripts, one per feature, that record the README media
Casks/, bucket/         Homebrew cask and Scoop manifest, written by the release workflow

Roadmap

• Side-by-side diff with syntax highlighting
• Interactive rebase (reorder / squash / fixup from the log)
• Hunk-level selection in the commit workspace, conflict resolution helpers
• Amend / sign-off toggles, commit message templates
• Stash list panel, CI status column