🔰

Githical

The Mithical Git Client for the Terminal

AI coding is bringing more people into the terminal. But most terminal apps still assume you are already an expert. They can feel cryptic, cramped, and unforgiving.

Githical makes Git feel clear in the terminal. You get clarity in a fast, keyboard and mouse friendly TUI, focused on the stuff you do every day: review changes, stage the right lines, commit, sync, switch branches, check history, stash work, and recover when things get messy.

Screenshots

Changes

Githical changes view with a file list and patch preview

History

Githical history list with commit details and patch preview

History Graph

Githical history graph with commit details and patch preview

Command Palette

Githical command palette over the journal view

Help

Githical help overlay in the branches view

Light Theme

Githical light theme command palette over the changes view

What It Does

By design, Githical is focused. It makes everyday Git easy to see, understand, and trust. It does not try to wrap all of Git. That is the point.

Githical V1 includes Changes, History, Branches, Sync, Stash, and Journal views. You can stage precisely, commit confidently, amend, reuse recent messages, discard with confirmation, open files in your editor, fetch, pull, push, create and switch branches, clean up old branches, merge or rebase from main, inspect history, revert, reset the last commit while keeping your changes, manage stashes, read the operation journal, and recover HEAD from the reflog.

Githical uses your installed git under the hood, so your normal Git config, credentials, hooks, signing, and remotes keep working.

Install

You need:

The system git binary installed and available on PATH, unless git_binary is configured.
A modern terminal.

Install with Homebrew on macOS or Linux:

brew install essenciary/tap/githical

After Essenciary.Githical is accepted into the WinGet community repository, install it on Windows with:

winget install --id Essenciary.Githical --exact

You can also download a portable archive from GitHub Releases:

githical__darwin_arm64.tar.gz for macOS Apple Silicon.
githical__darwin_amd64.tar.gz for macOS Intel.
githical__linux_arm64.tar.gz for Linux ARM64.
githical__linux_amd64.tar.gz for Linux x86_64.
githical__windows_arm64.zip for Windows ARM64.
githical__windows_amd64.zip for Windows x86_64.

Extract it, then put the githical binary somewhere on PATH. Windows archives contain githical.exe. Download checksums.txt from the same release to verify the archive before installing:

sha256sum -c checksums.txt --ignore-missing

On macOS, use:

shasum -a 256 -c checksums.txt --ignore-missing

Linux releases also include native packages:

sudo apt install ./githical__linux_amd64.deb
sudo dnf install ./githical__linux_amd64.rpm

Use the matching ARM64 package name on ARM machines. The .deb, .rpm, Homebrew, and WinGet packages declare Git as a runtime dependency. Detailed install, verification, and source-build instructions are in docs/install.md.

CLI

githical [PATH]
githical --repo PATH
githical --help
githical --version

Run githical inside a Git repository, or pass a path. --version prints the build version; unreleased local builds default to dev.

Config

Githical can read a small JSON config file from: /githical/config.json.

You can set your preferred external editor, Git executable, startup theme, file-name styling, custom themes, and operational limits:

{
  "editor": "code --wait",
  "git_binary": "git",
  "view": "system",
  "active_theme": "githical",
  "file_style": "rich",
  "limits": {
    "recent_history": 30,
    "journal_read": 2000,
    "journal_batch": 50,
    "reflog": 200,
    "patch_preview_lines": 5000
  }
}

Supported JSON keys:

editor: external editor command used when opening files.
git_binary: executable name or path for Git. Defaults to git, resolved from PATH.
view: startup theme mode. Valid values are light, dark, and system.
active_theme: startup theme ID. Defaults to githical.
file_style: file-name styling.
themes: custom theme definitions.
limits: positive numeric limits for recent_history, journal_read, journal_batch, reflog, and patch_preview_lines.

file_style can be rich or muted; rich is the default and adds semantic color to file names, while muted preserves plain path styling.

Built-in theme IDs:

githical
dracula
nord
catppuccin
tokyo-night
gruvbox
solarized
one-dark
monokai
ayu
github

Custom themes can be added with a themes array. Each theme has:

id
name
light
dark

Each light and dark variant defines these #RRGGBB colors:

ink
subtle
line
accent
accent_ink
top_bar
tab_bar
footer
panel
added
removed
added_panel
removed_panel
warn
code_keyword
code_string
footer_divider

Startup theme mode, active theme, and theme style can also be changed from the command palette. Those changes are written to config.json.

Custom theme palettes are still defined manually in JSON.

Environment options:

GITHICAL_EDITOR: first editor preference, before config editor, VISUAL, and EDITOR.
GITHICAL_CONFIG=/path/to/config.json: override the config file path.
GITHICAL_STATE=/path/to/state.json: override the app-managed UI state path.
GITHICAL_ASCII=1: use plain ASCII symbols for terminals that do not render Unicode symbols well.

Editor resolution order is GITHICAL_EDITOR, config editor, VISUAL, then EDITOR.

Omitted limits fields use defaults.

Unknown config keys, invalid theme objects, invalid hex colors, duplicate user theme IDs, and non-positive numeric limits stop startup with a config error.

Githical also writes app-managed UI state to /githical/state.json. This currently stores main_pane_width, the internal panel width after you resize the panes, so it can be restored on the next startup. Tests and advanced troubleshooting can override this path with GITHICAL_STATE=/path/to/state.json.

Develop

To work on Githical, you need Go 1.26.5 or newer and git on PATH.

Build a local development binary:

go build -o /tmp/githical ./cmd/githical

Run tests:

go test ./...

Build release-ready distributions into dist/:

./scripts/build-dist.sh

The build script writes the local dist/githical binary and release archives. Tagged release CI also builds Linux packages, generates Homebrew and WinGet metadata, smoke tests the published architectures on native runners, and attests the final artifacts. Maintainer setup is documented in docs/publishing.md.

Project

Githical is released under the MIT License. Contributions are welcome through CONTRIBUTING.md, and security reports should follow SECURITY.md. All contributors are expected to follow the Code of Conduct.

🔰

Githical

The Mithical Git Client for the Terminal

AI coding is bringing more people into the terminal. But most terminal apps still assume you are already an expert. They can feel cryptic, cramped, and unforgiving.

Screenshots

Changes

Githical changes view with a file list and patch preview

History

Githical history list with commit details and patch preview

History Graph

Githical history graph with commit details and patch preview

Command Palette

Githical command palette over the journal view

Help

Githical help overlay in the branches view

Light Theme

Githical light theme command palette over the changes view

What It Does

By design, Githical is focused. It makes everyday Git easy to see, understand, and trust. It does not try to wrap all of Git. That is the point.

Githical uses your installed git under the hood, so your normal Git config, credentials, hooks, signing, and remotes keep working.

Install

You need:

The system git binary installed and available on PATH, unless git_binary is configured.
A modern terminal.

Install with Homebrew on macOS or Linux:

brew install essenciary/tap/githical

After Essenciary.Githical is accepted into the WinGet community repository, install it on Windows with:

winget install --id Essenciary.Githical --exact

You can also download a portable archive from GitHub Releases:

githical__darwin_arm64.tar.gz for macOS Apple Silicon.
githical__darwin_amd64.tar.gz for macOS Intel.
githical__linux_arm64.tar.gz for Linux ARM64.
githical__linux_amd64.tar.gz for Linux x86_64.
githical__windows_arm64.zip for Windows ARM64.
githical__windows_amd64.zip for Windows x86_64.

Extract it, then put the githical binary somewhere on PATH. Windows archives contain githical.exe. Download checksums.txt from the same release to verify the archive before installing:

sha256sum -c checksums.txt --ignore-missing

On macOS, use:

shasum -a 256 -c checksums.txt --ignore-missing

Linux releases also include native packages:

sudo apt install ./githical__linux_amd64.deb
sudo dnf install ./githical__linux_amd64.rpm

CLI

githical [PATH]
githical --repo PATH
githical --help
githical --version

Run githical inside a Git repository, or pass a path. --version prints the build version; unreleased local builds default to dev.

Config

Githical can read a small JSON config file from: /githical/config.json.

You can set your preferred external editor, Git executable, startup theme, file-name styling, custom themes, and operational limits:

{
  "editor": "code --wait",
  "git_binary": "git",
  "view": "system",
  "active_theme": "githical",
  "file_style": "rich",
  "limits": {
    "recent_history": 30,
    "journal_read": 2000,
    "journal_batch": 50,
    "reflog": 200,
    "patch_preview_lines": 5000
  }
}

Supported JSON keys:

editor: external editor command used when opening files.
git_binary: executable name or path for Git. Defaults to git, resolved from PATH.
view: startup theme mode. Valid values are light, dark, and system.
active_theme: startup theme ID. Defaults to githical.
file_style: file-name styling.
themes: custom theme definitions.
limits: positive numeric limits for recent_history, journal_read, journal_batch, reflog, and patch_preview_lines.

file_style can be rich or muted; rich is the default and adds semantic color to file names, while muted preserves plain path styling.

Built-in theme IDs:

githical
dracula
nord
catppuccin
tokyo-night
gruvbox
solarized
one-dark
monokai
ayu
github

Custom themes can be added with a themes array. Each theme has:

id
name
light
dark

Each light and dark variant defines these #RRGGBB colors:

ink
subtle
line
accent
accent_ink
top_bar
tab_bar
footer
panel
added
removed
added_panel
removed_panel
warn
code_keyword
code_string
footer_divider

Startup theme mode, active theme, and theme style can also be changed from the command palette. Those changes are written to config.json.

Custom theme palettes are still defined manually in JSON.

Environment options:

GITHICAL_EDITOR: first editor preference, before config editor, VISUAL, and EDITOR.
GITHICAL_CONFIG=/path/to/config.json: override the config file path.
GITHICAL_STATE=/path/to/state.json: override the app-managed UI state path.
GITHICAL_ASCII=1: use plain ASCII symbols for terminals that do not render Unicode symbols well.

Editor resolution order is GITHICAL_EDITOR, config editor, VISUAL, then EDITOR.

Omitted limits fields use defaults.

Unknown config keys, invalid theme objects, invalid hex colors, duplicate user theme IDs, and non-positive numeric limits stop startup with a config error.

Develop

To work on Githical, you need Go 1.26.5 or newer and git on PATH.

Build a local development binary:

go build -o /tmp/githical ./cmd/githical

Run tests:

go test ./...

Build release-ready distributions into dist/:

./scripts/build-dist.sh

Githical Essenciary

README

🔰

Githical

Screenshots

What It Does

Install

CLI

Config

Develop

Project

Githical Essenciary

README

🔰

Githical

Screenshots

What It Does

Install

CLI

Config

Develop

Project