local-gitingest

A simple CLI tool to turn a project into a text-based snapshot, ideal for feeding into LLMs for summaries, documentation, or code analysis while fully respecting your .gitignore rules.

This local variant improves upon gitingest.com by supporting your repositoryΓÇÖs .gitignore, making it perfect for local development.

Features

• Respects .gitignore: automatically excludes files based on your project's .gitignore out of the box (no more noise from unwanted files).
• Customizable output: include hidden files, disable tree view, or add extra exclude patterns.

Installation

Prerequisites

• bun (recommended): https://bun.sh/
• Alternatively, Node.js and npm: https://nodejs.org/
• Git (or just download the source code directly from the GitHub repository): https://git-scm.com/

Install via Bun

git clone https://github.com/machadinhos/local-gitingest.git
cd local-gitingest
bun install

Install via npm

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/local-gitingest.git
cd local-gitingest
npm install

Usage

Generate a text snapshot of your project directory (default: current folder) and copy it to the clipboard:

bun path/to/local-gitingest path/to/your/project

Options

Flag	Description	Default
-i, --include-hidden	Include hidden files (those starting with .)	false
-g, --ignore-gitignore	DonΓÇÖt respect .gitignore; list all files	false
-t, --no-tree	Output file list without tree structure	false
-e, --exclude <pattern>	Additional glob or path pattern to ignore (can be passed multiple times)	ΓÇö
-h, --help	Show help text	ΓÇö

Shell Aliases & Shortcuts

PowerShell

Add this snippet to your PowerShell profile ($PROFILE):

function gitingest {
    [Console]::OutputEncoding = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8
    $firstArg = $args[0]

    if ($firstArg -eq '-h' -or $firstArg -eq '--help') {
        bun /path/to/local-gitingest $args
    } else {
        bun /path/to/local-gitingest $args | Set-Clipboard
    }
}

Replace /path/to/local-gitingest with the path to your local-gitingest installation.

Bash / Zsh

Add to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc:

gitingest() {
  local out
  out=$(bun /path/to/local-gitingest "$@")
  printf '%s' "$out" | xclip -selection clipboard
}

Ensure xclip (or xsel) is installed on Linux:

sudo apt install xclip