Gitoutput

Turn any Git repository or local directory into a prompt-friendly text digest for LLMs — no install required, straight from npx.

Quick start

npx gitoutput /path/to/directory

npx gitoutput https://github.com/AnEntrypoint/gitoutput

That's it — gitoutput writes a chunked digest (summary + mcp-thorns report in chunk 1, directory tree and file contents split across the rest) to <gitprojectname>-1.txt, -2.txt, etc. in the current directory. npx fetches the latest published version each time, so there's nothing to install or keep up to date.

# Print a single digest to stdout instead of writing files
npx gitoutput . --output -
npx gitoutput . --output - | pbcopy

# Point it at a subdirectory or branch
npx gitoutput https://github.com/AnEntrypoint/gitoutput/tree/main/src
npx gitoutput . --branch develop

Requirements

• Node.js 18+ (ships with npx)
• git installed and on your PATH — used as a fallback for private repos, non-GitHub hosts, and anything a plain zip download can't express. Public github.com repos are fetched directly as a zipball instead, with no git subprocess involved.
• For private repositories: a GitHub Personal Access Token (PAT). Generate one here.

Private repositories

npx gitoutput https://github.com/username/private-repo --token github_pat_...

# or via environment variable
export GITHUB_TOKEN=github_pat_...
npx gitoutput https://github.com/username/private-repo

Filtering what's included

By default, everything not matched by .gitignore/.gitingestignore or gitoutput's own built-in ignore list is included — the goal is a digest with exactly what an agent needs to plan changes, nothing more. The built-in list unconditionally excludes:

• All hidden files and directories (anything starting with . — .github/, .eslintrc, .env.example, editor/IDE config, AI-agent tooling state, VCS internals, etc.)
• Build/output directories that mirror or duplicate source (build/, dist/, out/, output/, builds/, artifacts/, generated/, public/, static/, etc.)
• Binaries and compiled artifacts across every major language/platform (executables, object files, ML model weights, 3D/game-engine assets, archives, media, fonts, office documents)
• Lockfiles, caches, and secrets (node_modules, *.lock, *.key/*.pem/credentials.json, etc.)

npx gitoutput . --exclude-pattern "*.test.js"
npx gitoutput . --include-pattern "src/**"
npx gitoutput . --include-gitignored   # also include .gitignore'd files

Output

By default, gitoutput writes chunked files instead of printing to stdout: <gitprojectname>-1.txt, <gitprojectname>-2.txt, etc., each at most 80,000 characters. Chunk 1 contains the summary and an mcp-thorns codebase report; later chunks contain the directory tree and file contents.

npx gitoutput .                       # writes gitoutput-1.txt, gitoutput-2.txt, ...
npx gitoutput . --output digest.txt   # writes digest-1.txt, digest-2.txt, ...
npx gitoutput . --output -            # print a single digest to stdout instead

All options

Flag	Short	Description
--max-size <bytes>	-s	Maximum file size to process, in bytes (default: 10 MB)
--exclude-pattern <p>	-e	Shell-style glob pattern to exclude (repeatable)
--include-pattern <p>	-i	Shell-style glob pattern to include (repeatable)
--branch <name>	-b	Branch to clone and ingest
--include-gitignored		Include files matched by .gitignore / .gitingestignore
--exclude-submodules		Exclude Git submodules (recursively included by default)
--token <token>	-t	GitHub PAT for private repositories (falls back to GITHUB_TOKEN env var)
--output <path>	-o	Output file base name for chunked files. Defaults to <gitprojectname>.txt. Pass - for stdout

npx gitoutput --help

Supported Git hosts

Bare user/repo slugs and scheme-less URLs are resolved against known hosts: github.com, gitlab.com, bitbucket.org, gitea.com, codeberg.org, and gist.github.com. Self-hosted instances are also recognized heuristically when the hostname starts with git., gitlab., or github. (e.g. GitHub Enterprise).

Using it as a library

If you're building a Node.js tool on top of gitoutput rather than shelling out to the CLI:

npm install gitoutput

import { ingestAsync } from "gitoutput";

const [summary, tree, content] = await ingestAsync("https://github.com/AnEntrypoint/gitoutput");

console.log(summary);

Docker

docker build -t gitoutput .
docker run --rm gitoutput https://github.com/AnEntrypoint/gitoutput

Contributing

Issues and pull requests welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md.

Stack

• commander — CLI framework
• ignore — .gitignore-style pattern matching
• js-tiktoken — token estimation