Glitter

rt glitter is a git client in your terminal: repos, changes, diff, history, and commit on one board. It follows GitHub Desktop closely, so if you know Desktop you already know the layout. Run it from inside a repo rt tracks; it needs an interactive terminal.

rt glitter

The board

• Top bar. Three segments (repository, worktree, branch) and an action button on the right. Click a segment, or press r, w or b, to open its foldout.
• Changes list. Every changed file with a checkbox, and a summary line reading "N changed files · M staged", where M counts ticked files. / filters the list: type, then press enter.
• Diff pane. The selected file's full change against HEAD.
• Commit box. A summary field, a description field, and the commit button, docked under the changes list.
• Keybar. The main keys for the current tab. It changes on the History tab and in the stash view.

1 and 2 switch between the Changes and History tabs.

Checkboxes decide what goes into a commit

A checkbox means "put this in the next commit". It does not mean "already staged". Ticking or unticking a file, a hunk, or a single line never changes the git index.

Every changed file starts fully ticked, and switching branch, worktree, or repo ticks everything again. After a commit, a file you had only partly ticked is left unticked, so you review what is left.

When you commit, glitter resets the git index to HEAD, rebuilds it from the checkboxes, then runs git commit. This is how GitHub Desktop works too, and it has one consequence worth knowing:

caution

Anything staged outside glitter (a plain git add, or another agent working in the same checkout) is unstaged at the next commit. Your edits stay in the working tree, but the commit contains exactly what the checkboxes say.

In the diff pane, space ticks or unticks the line under the cursor and s does the whole hunk. Clicking the @@ hunk header toggles that hunk too.

Committing

Press c to jump to the summary field, and tab to move between summary and description. ctrl+enter commits. If your terminal sends ctrl+enter as a plain enter (Terminal.app does), click the commit button instead. The button stays disabled until at least one file is ticked (or you are amending) and the summary has text.

a (or ctrl+a while typing) switches to amending the last commit. A banner reading "Amending last commit" stays up until you press it again. The summary is not filled in for you; type the message you want the amended commit to have.

When the branch is ahead of its upstream, a strip shows "Committed when · summary" with an Undo chip. u undoes the last commit and puts its changes back in the list. It refuses a commit that is already pushed, the repo's first commit, and a merge.

The action button

The button on the right of the top bar always offers the next sensible remote step, the way Desktop's does: Fetch, Pull, Push, Publish branch, or Publish repository. After you amend or undo a commit in glitter, it recommends Force push. f runs whatever it currently shows.

• When the branch has diverged, one Pull button shows both counts. There is no combined pull-and-push step.
• When pull.rebase is set, it reads "Pull origin with rebase".
• On a detached HEAD it reads "Detached HEAD", and f refuses with a notice.
• Publish repository asks for a name, then private or public. Type owner/name to publish to an organization. It runs gh repo create, so the GitHub CLI must be signed in.

Repos, worktrees and branches

• r opens the repository foldout. Repos are grouped by host and owner, and each repo shows a badge with its dirty count and ahead and behind arrows.
• w opens the worktree foldout, including the on-deck pool. ctrl+n turns the filter into a name field for a new worktree. The name you type is the branch name; rt picks the folder name itself.
• b opens the branch foldout, and ctrl+n there names a new branch. A branch that is checked out in another worktree, or that a gitq stack protects, is refused. Desktop would switch to the other worktree instead.

Switching branches with uncommitted changes asks what to do: Leave them on the current branch as a stash, or Bring them to the new branch.

Stash

glitter keeps one stash per branch, in the same format GitHub Desktop uses, so a stash made in either tool works in the other.

• S stashes every change on the current branch. If the branch already has a stash, it asks before overwriting it.
• A "Stashed Changes" strip appears above the commit box whenever the branch has a stash. Click it or press h to open the stash view.
• In the stash view, R restores the stash into the Changes list, D discards it (always asks first), and h closes the view. esc closes it from the file list, or steps back to the file list from the stash's diff.

History

The History tab lists commits grouped by date (Today, Yesterday, and so on), with tag pills and an ↑ on commits you have not pushed.

• ↑/↓ pick a commit and enter moves to its changed files.
• shift+↑/↓ select a range of commits, so you can see their combined changes.
• e expands the commit header to show the full message.
• / filters the loaded commits as you type. The last row, "Load 100 more commits" ("Search 100 more commits" while filtering), pages in older ones.

History diffs are read-only.

Menus

Right-click a changed file, a commit, or a History file to open its menu. Right-clicking the "N changed files" line offers Discard All Changes and Stash All Changes. ctrl+k opens the menu for whatever has focus. With nothing selected it opens "Actions", the board-wide section with the main keys.

Type to filter a menu's rows. The board-wide rows show their key as a reminder: choose the row, or close the menu and press the key.

• Discard asks first, then moves the file to the Trash before touching git. If the Trash fails, glitter stops and says so; it never deletes permanently.
• Create Tag asks for a name. The new tag shows in History right away.
• Open Repository in Editor uses the editor rt code resolved for the repo. Run rt code once if none is set.

In the diff pane, d discards the line under the cursor, or the whole hunk when the cursor is on its @@ header. Press it twice within 5 seconds; the first press only asks, and any other action in between cancels it.

caution

A d discard is permanent. It does not use the Trash, and it does not work on new, untracked files; use the file menu's Discard for those.

Keys

Key	Changes tab
↑/↓	Move through files
space	Tick or untick the file
enter	Move into the diff
c	Write the commit message
a	Toggle amend
u	Undo the last commit
f	Run the action button
b / w / r	Branch, worktree, repository foldouts
/	Filter files (type, then enter)
S / h	Stash all changes / show the stash
2	History tab
ctrl+k	Menu
q	Quit

Key	Diff pane
↑/↓	Move the line cursor
space	Tick or untick the line
s	Tick or untick the hunk
d	Discard the line or hunk (press twice; permanent)
esc	Back to the file list

Mouse

Rows, segments, and buttons take clicks, lists scroll with the wheel, and hovering always previews what a click would do. Shift-click extends a History range only in terminals that pass shift-clicks through. Ghostty and Terminal.app keep shift-click for their own text selection, so use shift+↑/↓ there.

Not built yet

These GitHub Desktop features are not in glitter yet: branch compare, hiding whitespace in diffs, most commit actions (revert, cherry-pick, reset to a commit), the Pull Requests tab, and image diffs. The commit menu offers Create Branch from Commit, Create Tag, Copy SHA, and, on the newest unpushed commit, Undo Commit.