Staged

A desktop diff viewer for git repositories. View any diff between refs, review changes, and prepare commits. Built with Tauri (Rust + libgit2) and Svelte.

What It Does

Staged lets you view diffs between any two git refs—branches, commits, tags, or the working tree. Select a base and head ref, browse changed files, and see side-by-side diffs with syntax highlighting.

Key concepts:

• Flexible diffs: Compare any ref to any ref (e.g., main..HEAD, HEAD..@ for uncommitted changes)
• @ = working tree: Use @ as a ref to include uncommitted changes
• Review sessions: Mark files as reviewed, add comments (coming soon)
• File watching: Auto-refresh when files change on disk

Installation

Quick Install (macOS)

Install with a single command:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/baxen/staged/main/install.sh | bash

The installer will:

• Clone the repository
• Set up the Hermit development environment
• Install dependencies
• Build the application
• Install to /Applications/staged.app

Note: This will build from source, which takes a few minutes. Requires git to be installed.

Development

Prerequisites

This project uses Hermit to manage development tools (Rust, Node.js, just). Hermit ensures everyone uses the same tool versions without global installs.

First time setup:

source bin/activate-hermit   # Activate hermit environment
rustup default stable        # Set the default Rust toolchain

After activation, cargo, node, npm, and just are all available from the hermit-managed versions.

Quick Start

just install   # Install npm + cargo dependencies
just dev       # Run in development mode (hot-reload)

Commands

just dev        # Run app in dev mode with hot-reload
just build      # Build for production
just frontend   # Run just the frontend (quick UI iteration)

# Code quality
just fmt        # Format all code (Rust + TypeScript/Svelte)
just lint       # Lint Rust with clippy
just typecheck  # Type check TypeScript + Svelte + Rust
just check-all  # Run all checks (format, lint, typecheck)

# Maintenance
just install    # Install all dependencies
just clean      # Remove build artifacts

Architecture

src-tauri/src/
├── diff/           # Core diff engine
│   ├── git.rs      # Git operations (libgit2)
│   ├── types.rs    # Data structures
│   ├── actions.rs  # File actions (stage, discard, etc.)
│   ├── review.rs   # Review session storage
│   └── watcher.rs  # File system watching
├── lib.rs          # Tauri commands (API surface)
└── refresh.rs      # Debounced refresh coordination

src/
├── App.svelte              # Main app shell
└── lib/
    ├── Sidebar.svelte      # File list with status indicators
    ├── DiffViewer.svelte   # Side-by-side diff display
    ├── DiffSelectorModal.svelte  # Ref picker UI
    └── services/           # Frontend services

License

MIT