git-whistles

Helpers for classic Git workflows. Written in Rust.

macOS and Linux. Restart your shell afterwards.

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mezis/git-whistles/master/install.sh | bash

That builds git-whistles from source, puts git-<command> shims on your PATH, and defines:

alias wt='eval "$(git-whistles worktree-list)"'

Running it again is safe. When brew is available it installs the published release with Homebrew (Linux x86_64, Linux arm64, and macOS Apple Silicon). Otherwise it installs Rust if needed (Homebrew, or rustup) and runs cargo install.

Manual build

cargo install --path . --locked
git-whistles shim --dir ~/.local/bin

shim and unshim are not shimmed; run them as git-whistles shim / git-whistles unshim. Remove shims with git-whistles unshim --dir ~/.local/bin.

Pass -x or --echo-commands on any invocation (before or after the subcommand) to print each external command to stderr before it runs, similar to set -x.

Pass -v or --stream-commands to stream subprocess output to your terminal when git-whistles is not capturing that output for parsing (for commands that only capture stdout, stderr is still streamed).

git-whistles -x chop my-branch
git staging -x
git-changes -v

• git chop [branch1 ...] — Delete local and remote branch(es). If you're on a branch being chopped, checks out the primary branch (main/master) first.

• git ff-all-branches [--no-fetch] [-p] [--progress] [-q] [-r REMOTE] — Fast-forward all local tracking branches to their remote counterpart where possible. Fetches first by default; --no-fetch skips that step; -p dry-run; --progress prints a line for each branch that is or would be updated. Global -v / --stream-commands streams underlying git subprocess output (see Debugging).

• git list-branches [-l] [-r] [-i integration-branch] [-p] — List local or remote branches and their distance to an integration branch (default: same primary as git changes: origin/HEAD if set, else origin/main or origin/master). -p porcelain (CSV).

• git worktree-list / wt — Interactive table of worktrees from every main clone this command has been run in (repo, branch, path; long paths elide the prefix). Arrow keys move; typing letters/digits filters (subsequence match). Enter prints cd -- 'path' (wt is eval "$(git-whistles worktree-list)"; quotes required). Esc prints nothing. Ctrl-d destroys a linked worktree after confirm (docker compose down and/or bin/teardown when present, then git worktree remove). Cannot destroy the main checkout or the worktree the shell is in.

• git stash-and-checkout <branch> — Stash (including untracked), checkout the branch, then pop the matching WIP stash if any.

• git staging [branch] — Sync the given branch (or current) with main: stash-and-checkout → ff-all-branches → merge main → push → stash, checkout staging → fetch, reset --hard origin/staging → merge branch → push → stash-and-checkout back. Use when you want to land a feature branch into a staging branch.

• git merge-po <base> <local> <remote> — Three-way merge driver for gettext PO files. Uses msguniq, msgcat, msgmerge, msggrep. Not meant to be run by hand; use as a merge driver (see below).

• git changes [git log args…] — Show commits on the current branch that are not in the primary remote branch. The primary branch is detected from origin/HEAD, or origin/main, or origin/master. Extra arguments are passed through to git log (for example git changes --stat or git changes -- path/to/file). Global -v / -x stay git-whistles flags; use -- if you need to pass those to git log.

• git-whistles shim [--dir DIR] / git-whistles unshim [--dir DIR] — Add or remove git-<subcommand> symlinks to the main binary (not shim / unshim themselves). Default dir: /usr/local/bin.

You can run the binary as git-whistles <subcommand> or install shims and run e.g. git-chop or git merge-po (after git-chop / git-merge-po are on PATH).

Use as a Git merge driver for .po / .pot files.

Repo-local — in .git/config:

[merge "pofile"]
  name = Gettext merge driver
  driver = git merge-po %O %A %B

In .gitattributes:

*.po   merge=pofile
*.pot  merge=pofile

Global — in ~/.gitconfig:

[core]
  attributesfile = ~/.gitattributes
[merge "pofile"]
  name = Gettext merge driver
  driver = git merge-po %O %A %B

And in ~/.gitattributes:

*.po   merge=pofile
*.pot  merge=pofile

Requires gettext (msguniq, msgcat, msgmerge, msggrep) on PATH.

Gettext (msguniq, msgcat, msgmerge, msggrep) is mandatory for the full test suite. Install it first (e.g. apt-get install gettext, brew install gettext).

cargo build --release
cargo test

MIT.