Git Explorer

A macOS desktop app that shows git repos as a navigable folder tree. Built with Tauri v2, Svelte 5, and the git2 Rust crate.

Install

Download git-explorer-macos-aarch64.dmg from the latest release (Apple Silicon only — Intel Macs need to build from source).

1. Open the .dmg and drag Git Explorer to /Applications.

2. Remove the quarantine flag. The app isn't signed, so macOS will refuse to launch it ("Git Explorer is damaged and can't be opened") until you run this once in Terminal:

   xattr -cr /Applications/Git\ Explorer.app
   

   Then double-click normally. (Releases from v0.1.1 onward are ad-hoc signed and won't need this step.)

3. On first launch you'll be asked to pick a root directory — point it at the folder containing your projects.

Status indicators

Configuration

Settings are stored at:

~/.config/git-explorer/config.json

Currently a single field:

{
  "root_path": "/Users/you/Code"
}

Building from source

Prereqs:

• macOS
• Rust — install via rustup
• pnpm — npm install -g pnpm
• Xcode Command Line Tools — xcode-select --install

Run the dev server:

pnpm install
pnpm tauri dev

Produce a .app bundle:

pnpm tauri build

Type check + tests:

pnpm check
cd src-tauri && cargo test

Architecture

• Rust backend (src-tauri/src/commands/) — split per domain: status, scan, staging, branches, commits, remote, stash, config, helpers, types. Most operations use git2; network ops (fetch, push, pull, merge) shell out to the git CLI for credential/SSH-agent support and are cancellable.
• Svelte 5 frontend (src/) — runes only ($state, $derived, $effect, $props), no stores. Top-level state lives in App.svelte and is passed down as props.

For deeper architecture notes, see CLAUDE.md.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md.

License

Apache License 2.0 — see LICENSE.