diffstalker

A terminal git UI that lives on your second monitor. It watches your repositories in real time, follows you as you switch projects, and shows word-level diffs so you always know exactly what changed.

!diffstalker diff view
Stage files and review changes with word-level diff highlighting.

!diffstalker history view
Browse commit history and inspect past changes.

Why diffstalker?

Keep up with AI. When AI assistants edit your code, changes happen fast. diffstalker gives you a live view of what's being modified, so you can review changes as they happen rather than piecing things together afterward.

Always-on visibility. Put it on your second monitor and forget about it. As you switch between projects, diffstalker follows along - showing your current changes, staged files, and diffs without you ever needing to alt-tab or type git status.

Dead-simple integration. Follow mode watches a plain text file for paths. Any script, hook, or tool can write to it. Add two lines to your shell config and every cd into a git repo updates the display automatically.

Everything at a glance. Auto-tab mode ensures there's always something useful on screen - uncommitted changes when you have them, recent commits when you don't.

Features

- Five views - Staging, Commit, History, PR comparison, and a file Explorer with syntax-highlighted preview
- Word-level diffs - See exactly which words changed within each line, not just which lines differ
- Follow mode - Automatically tracks whichever repo you're working in via a simple file-based hook
- Auto-tab - Intelligently switches views based on context (changes → history → PR diff)
- Fuzzy file finder - Ctrl+P to jump to any file in the repo
- PR review - Compare your branch against any base branch with per-file and per-commit diffs
- Mouse & keyboard - Click to stage, scroll through diffs, or use vim-style j/k navigation
- Right-click to discard - Quickly throw away unwanted changes with confirmation
- Resizable panes - [ and ] to adjust the split between file list and diff
- Line wrapping - Toggle with w for long lines
- 6 themes - Dark, light, colorblind-friendly (blue/red palette), and ANSI-only variants that use your terminal's colors

Installation

``bash
npm install -g diffstalker
`

Or from source:
`bash
git clone https://github.com/yogh-io/diffstalker.git
cd diffstalker
npm install && npm run build:prod
npm link
`

Quick Start

`bash
diffstalker # current directory
diffstalker /path/to/repo
diffstalker --follow # watch for repo changes (recommended for second monitor)
`

Follow mode watches ~/.cache/diffstalker/target for repository paths. Write or append to this file - diffstalker reads the last non-empty line, so both styles work.

$3

Shell hook - update on every cd:
`bash


Add to .bashrc or .zshrc


diffstalker_notify() {
[[ -d .git ]] && echo "$PWD" > ~/.cache/diffstalker/target
}
cd() { builtin cd "$@" && diffstalker_notify; }
`

Tmux - update on pane/window switch:
`bash


In .tmux.conf


set-hook -g pane-focus-in 'run-shell "tmux display -p \"#{pane_current_path}\" > ~/.cache/diffstalker/target"'
`

Neovim - update when changing buffers:
`lua
-- In init.lua
vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({"BufEnter"}, {
callback = function()
local root = vim.fn.finddir('.git/..', vim.fn.expand('%:p:h') .. ';')
if root ~= '' then
local f = io.open(os.getenv('HOME') .. '/.cache/diffstalker/target', 'w')
if f then f:write(vim.fn.fnamemodify(root, ':p:h')); f:close() end
end
end
})
`

Any script:
`bash
echo "/path/to/repo" > ~/.cache/diffstalker/target # overwrite
echo "/path/to/repo" >> ~/.cache/diffstalker/target # append (also works)
`

The file-based approach is intentionally simple. IDE plugins, window manager hooks, project switchers, git hooks - if it can write to a file, it can drive diffstalker.

Views

| Key | View | What it does |
|-----|------|--------------|
| 1 | Diff | Stage/unstage files, review word-level diffs |
| 2 | Commit | Write commit messages, amend previous commits |
| 3 | History | Browse recent commits and inspect their diffs |
| 4 | PR | Compare branch against a base branch with per-file navigation |
| 5 | Explorer | Browse the file tree with syntax-highlighted preview and fuzzy finder |

Keybindings

| Action | Keys |
|--------|------|
| Navigate | ↑/↓ or j/k |
| Switch panes | Tab |
| Switch views | 1-5 |
| Toggle stage | Space or Enter |
| Stage/unstage all | Shift+A / Shift+Z |
| Discard changes | d (with confirmation) |
| Fuzzy file finder | Ctrl+P or / in Explorer |
| Resize panes | [ / ] |
| Toggle line wrap | w |
| Themes | t |
| Help | ? |

Full keybinding reference available with ? in the app.

Themes

Six built-in themes - press t to switch:

| Theme | Description |
|-------|-------------|
| Dark / Light | Default palettes |
| Dark / Light (colorblind) | Blue/red palette for color vision deficiency |
| Dark / Light (ANSI) | Uses your terminal's 16 colors for full consistency |

Configuration

Config file: ~/.config/diffstalker/config.json

`json
{
"theme": "dark",
"splitRatio": 0.4,
"targetFile": "~/.cache/diffstalker/target"
}
`

CLI Options

`
diffstalker [options] [path]

Options:
-f, --follow [FILE] Watch file for repo paths
--once Show status once and exit
-d, --debug Log path changes to stderr
-h, --help Show help
``

License

MIT