diffler

magit, without Emacs. diffler is a terminal git UI that stages, commits and reviews pull requests, and lets your coding agent reply to the comments you leave in the diff.

I love magit and wanted it as its own program, with the vim-style keys it has in Doom Emacs. Then coding agents came along, and reading what they write became a big part of the day. So in diffler you comment right in the diff, and your agent replies in the thread and fixes the code while you watch.

Features

• Stage, commit, branch, push and pull with vim-style keys
• Comment on any line or range, in a diff or in any file of the repo
• Review GitHub, GitLab and Forgejo pull requests without checking them out
• Follow CI runs and read their logs
• Your agent answers your comments and walks you through its changes, if you want it to
• Step back through a file's history and see who changed each line
• Open several projects and worktrees side by side as tabs
• Works in git and jj repos
• Shows images right in the terminal, over kitty, sixel or iTerm2

Install

On macOS or Linux:

brew tap matheusfillipe/diffler https://github.com/matheusfillipe/diffler
brew install diffler

On Windows:

winget install matheusfillipe.diffler

With Rust, on any of them:

cargo install diffler

Prebuilt binaries for x86_64 and arm64 are on the releases page.

Scoop

scoop bucket add diffler https://github.com/matheusfillipe/diffler
scoop install diffler

Arch

diffler-bin on the AUR ships the prebuilt binary, so it installs without building.

yay -S diffler-bin

Nix

The flake serves the prebuilt binary. nix run tries it without installing anything, nix profile install keeps it.

nix run github:matheusfillipe/diffler
nix profile install github:matheusfillipe/diffler

npm

A wrapper that fetches the prebuilt binary. The package name is scoped, the command it installs is plain diffler.

npx @mattfillipe/diffler
npm install -g @mattfillipe/diffler

Quick start

diffler                 # open it in the current repo
diffler path/to/repo    # or in another one

You land on the status screen, which lists your changed files, unpushed commits, branches and pull requests. Keys are written vim-style: <cr> is Enter, <c-d> is Ctrl+d, and b p means press b, then p.

Move to a file and press <cr> to see its diff. s stages it, cc commits, and c leaves a comment on the line under the cursor.

For pull requests, press b p to list the open ones and <cr> to open one's page with its description and conversation. There, c comments on the pull request and R requests a reviewer. Press <cr> again to review its diff, and S to submit your line comments as one review. b P opens a new pull request from the current branch.

With a coding agent

diffler talks to your agent over MCP, the protocol agents use to call outside tools. Connect it once:

Claude Code

Install the plugin. It connects diffler and adds three commands: /df to answer your comments, /dfa to walk you through a change, and /dfr to review a change and leave comments.

claude plugin marketplace add matheusfillipe/diffler
claude plugin install diffler@diffler

If you only want the connection, without the commands:

claude mcp add diffler -- npx -y diffler-mcp

opencode

Add the server to opencode.json in the project, or globally in ~/.config/opencode/opencode.json:

{
  "mcp": {
    "diffler": {
      "type": "local",
      "command": ["npx", "-y", "diffler-mcp"],
      "enabled": true
    }
  }
}

And install the /df, /dfa and /dfr commands (opencode has no package mechanism for commands, so this fetches the ones maintained in this repo):

mkdir -p ~/.config/opencode/commands
for c in df dfa dfr; do curl -fsSLo ~/.config/opencode/commands/$c.md \
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/matheusfillipe/diffler/main/.opencode/commands/$c.md; done

Any other MCP agent

Run npx -y diffler-mcp as a stdio server. It finds the port of the diffler running in your repo, since each diffler writes its own to .diffler/mcp.json. Or point it at http://127.0.0.1:8417/mcp (streamable HTTP), the port the first diffler you started takes. The server also ships review, walkthrough and critique prompts that prompt-aware clients surface as commands.

Now comment on the agent's changes in diffler and press Z. That tells your agent your comments are ready. It replies in each thread and fixes the code, and you resolve the thread once you're happy. You can also ask it for a walkthrough of its change and open that from the status screen. More in docs/walkthroughs.md, and the agent's tools are listed in docs/mcp.md.

If you don't use an agent, turn the connection off with diffler --no-mcp, or enabled = false under [mcp] in the config.

How it compares

	diffler	tuicr	lazygit	magit
Standalone binary	✅	✅	✅	❌
Stage and commit	✅	❌	✅	✅
Line comments	✅	✅	❌	❌
PR review	✅¹	✅²	❌	❌
Agent replies in the thread	✅	❌³	❌	❌
Agent walkthroughs	✅	❌	❌	❌
jj	✅	✅	❌	❌

_{¹ GitHub, GitLab and Forgejo.
² GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, Bitbucket, Azure DevOps and Gerrit.
³ tuicr exports your comments as markdown for you to paste into the agent.}

Keys

You move around like in vim: j/k, gg/G, / to search, <c-d>/<c-u> to scroll. If you forget a key, ? shows every key of the screen you're on, and <c-k> lets you search all actions by name.

Key	What it does
<cr>	Open what's under the cursor
s / u	Stage / unstage
cc	Commit
c	Comment on the line, or on a range you selected with V, in a diff or any file
Z	Send your comments to the agent
m	Mark the file as viewed
t	Change how the file list is grouped
|	Switch between a unified and a side-by-side diff
] / [	Jump to the next / previous hunk
za / tab	Fold or unfold a hunk, or the earlier replies of a thread
* / #	Find where the symbol on the line is used
d	Review against another branch or commit
C	Open the list of comments
gf	Open any file in the repo
alt-n	Open another project as a tab, then alt-h / alt-l to switch
w	Open, create or remove a worktree
y / Y	Copy your selection or this file's comments / all comments, to paste into any agent
gy / gx	Copy / open the GitHub, GitLab or Forgejo link to the line
B	See who last changed each line
{ / }	Step to the file's older / newer version
e	Open the file in your editor
q	Go back, or quit

Every binding is remappable in docs/config.example.toml. The mouse works, over tmux too: click to select or fold, and right-click (or press and hold) a line, file or comment for what you can do with it.

Configuration

Layered TOML: defaults, then ~/.config/diffler/config.toml, then <repo>/.diffler/config.toml, then CLI flags. Every option is documented in docs/config.example.toml. See the merged result and where each value came from:

diffler config --dump

Themes

Switch live with T, or set ui.theme. See every theme in the gallery. Add your own as a TOML file in ~/.config/diffler/themes/: docs/themes lists every key.

Development

just ci     # fmt + clippy + tests
just e2e    # PTY end-to-end suite (needs uv)

Requires Rust 1.90+, just, cargo-nextest. Hooks: prek install. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

MIT or Apache-2.0, at your option.