explaingit

gitui-org/gitui

★ 21,880RustAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5ActiveLicenseSetup · easy

TLDR

A fast, keyboard-driven git interface that runs in your terminal, letting you browse commits, stage changes, and manage branches without leaving the command line.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((GitUI))
    What it does
      View commits
      Stage changes
      Manage branches
      Search history
    Key features
      Keyboard shortcuts
      Context help
      Stash support
      Push and fetch
    Why use it
      Fast on large repos
      Low memory usage
      Never leave terminal
    Tech stack
      Rust
      Cross-platform
    Audience
      Terminal users
      Large codebases

Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Browse and search commit history in a large repository without waiting for a slow graphical application to load.

USE CASE 2

Stage individual lines or sections of code changes directly from the terminal using keyboard navigation.

USE CASE 3

Manage branches, stash work in progress, and push/fetch from remote servers without switching windows.

USE CASE 4

Work efficiently on codebases with hundreds of thousands of commits while using minimal memory.

Tech stack

Rust

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Requires Rust toolchain; binary download or `cargo install` available.

Use freely for any purpose including commercial, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

In plain English

GitUI is a tool that brings the visual, interactive experience of a graphical git application into a regular text terminal. Git is the version control system developers use to track changes to code over time. Most developers interact with git either through typed commands in a terminal or through a separate graphical window application. GitUI offers a middle ground: a keyboard-driven, menu-style interface that lives entirely inside the terminal, so you never have to leave your command-line environment to browse commits, stage changes, or manage branches. The motivation behind the tool, explained in the README, is that graphical git applications often become slow or unresponsive when working with very large codebases. GitUI was built to be fast even on repositories with hundreds of thousands of commits. A benchmark in the README shows it handling a repository with over 900,000 commits in 24 seconds, compared to several minutes for other similar tools, while using much less memory. The features cover the most common day-to-day git tasks: viewing and committing changes, staging individual lines or sections of a file (called "hunks"), stashing work in progress to set it aside temporarily, pushing and fetching from remote servers, managing branches, and browsing the commit history with search. The interface shows context-sensitive help as you navigate, so you don't need to memorize keyboard shortcuts upfront. GitUI is written in Rust, which is the main reason for its speed. It is available for Linux, macOS, and Windows, and can be installed through many common package managers. The full README is longer than what was provided.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
How do I install GitUI and start using it to manage my git repository from the terminal?
Prompt 2
Show me how to stage individual lines of code changes using GitUI's hunk staging feature.
Prompt 3
What keyboard shortcuts do I need to know to navigate commits, branches, and search in GitUI?
Prompt 4
How does GitUI handle very large repositories with hundreds of thousands of commits compared to other git tools?
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Generated 2026-05-21 · Model: sonnet-4-6 · Verify against the repo before relying on details.