differ

A CLI tool for breaking down diff summaries.

> differ

Documentation: +772 -3 (775) [9 files]
Tests: +1991 -0 (1991) [21 files]
Source: +6512 -351 (6863) [50 files]
Generated: +38 -0 (38) [1 files]
Uncategorized: +12 -0 (12) [1 files]
Total: +9325 -354 (9679) [82 files]

Installation

Homebrew (macOS and Linux)

brew tap jbonatakis/tap && brew install differ

From source

go install github.com/jbonatakis/differ/cmd/differ@latest

Binary releases

Download pre-built binaries from the Releases page. Binaries are available for:

• macOS (arm64, x86_64)
• Linux (arm64, x86_64)

Documentation

Usage

• See the Usage Guide for detailed usage instructions

Basic examples:

# Auto-detect a base ref and compare against your current branch/worktree
differ

# Compare an explicit revision range
differ main...HEAD

# Compare explicit refs
differ --base main --head feature/my-branch

# Show summary + per-file list
differ -l

# Show per-file list only
differ -L

# JSON output for scripting/CI
differ --format json

# Restrict to specific paths and exclude globs
differ --exclude 'vendor/**' -- docs/ internal/

Common flags:

• --base <rev> / --head <rev>: select refs explicitly.
• --empty <include|exclude>: include or skip empty/whitespace-only changed lines.
• --format <text|json>: choose output format.
• -l, --list: show summary plus per-file list.
• -L, --list-only: show only per-file list.
• --include <glob> / --exclude <glob>: filter paths (repeatable).
• --category <docs|tests|source|generated|other>: restrict categories (repeatable).
• --sort <churn|path>: sort file list output.
• --no-color: disable ANSI colors in text mode.

Run differ --help for the full CLI reference.

Releasing

Releases are automated by .github/workflows/release.yml:

• On a GitHub Release creation, binaries are built and uploaded as release assets.
• After assets upload, the workflow updates jbonatakis/homebrew-tap with the new differ formula version and SHA256 values.