dirsync

A cross-platform CLI tool for comparing, diffing and merging two directories of source code files, with Git history awareness.

Features

• Fast comparison by SHA-256 hash, file size and modification date
• Side-by-side diff for text files (similar/unified diff engine)
• Git history awareness – reads both repos (even unrelated histories) to determine which side has newer changes and detect true conflicts
• Interactive TUI (Ratatui) – kdiff3 / Beyond Compare style: side-by-side diff, file list with status icons, git history popup
• CLI modes: dry-run, auto-sync, force-left, force-right
• Binary-file detection (no broken diffs)
• Cross-platform: Linux, macOS, Windows

Build

Requires a current stable Rust toolchain (edition 2024; Rust 1.85+ recommended) and libgit2 (usually provided by the git2 crate which builds it from source automatically if not found via pkg-config).

cargo build --release
# binary: target/release/dirsync

On Linux you may need:

sudo apt install libssl-dev pkg-config   # Debian/Ubuntu
sudo dnf install openssl-devel           # Fedora/RHEL

Usage

dirsync [OPTIONS] <LEFT> <RIGHT>

Arguments

Argument	Description
LEFT	Left (source A) directory
RIGHT	Right (source B) directory

Options

Flag	Description
(none)	Interactive TUI – browse diffs, choose actions, apply
--dry-run	Show a summary of differences without modifying files
--auto	Auto-sync: copy unambiguous changes, skip conflicts
--force-left	Force sync: RIGHT overwrites LEFT everywhere
--force-right	Force sync: LEFT overwrites RIGHT everywhere
-v, --verbose	Verbose output in non-interactive modes
--exclude <PATTERN>	Excluye rutas por patrón; puede repetirse varias veces

La TUI ahora muestra contadores de visibles/pendientes, conserva mejor el estado de selección al filtrar y restaura el terminal correctamente incluso si ocurre un error. Los .gitignore de cada árbol también se respetan durante el escaneo, junto con exclusiones extra por --exclude.

Examples

# Interactive TUI
dirsync ~/project-a ~/project-b

# See what differs without touching anything
dirsync --dry-run ~/project-a ~/project-b

# Auto-sync files where git history is clear, skip conflicts
dirsync --auto ~/project-a ~/project-b

# Exclude node_modules in any nested subdirectory
dirsync --exclude '**/node_modules' ~/project-a ~/project-b

# Repeat --exclude as many times as needed
dirsync --exclude '**/node_modules' --exclude 'dist/**' ~/project-a ~/project-b

# Mirror left from right (right always wins)
dirsync --force-left ~/project-a ~/project-b

# Mirror right from left (left always wins)
dirsync --force-right ~/project-a ~/project-b

TUI Keyboard Shortcuts

Navigation

Key	Action
↑ / k	Move up in file list
↓ / j	Move down in file list
Tab	Switch between file list ↔ diff view
Esc / q	Back / quit
PgUp / PgDn	Scroll diff view 20 lines
Home / g	Jump to first diff line
End / G	Jump to last diff line
Ctrl-C	Quit immediately

Actions (file list panel)

Key	Action
l / →	Queue: copy LEFT → RIGHT
r / ←	Queue: copy RIGHT → LEFT
m	Auto-merge current file (text only)
s	Skip this file (clear action)
Enter	Apply queued action for current file
a	Apply all queued actions

View

Key	Action
f	Cycle filter: Diffs → Conflicts → All
g	Git history popup for current file
?	Help popup

Status symbols

≡  Identical    ◀  Left-only    ▶  Right-only
≠  Modified     ⚡  Conflict
→  Queue L→R    ←  Queue R→L    ⊕  Merged

How Git history is used

When both directories are inside Git repositories (which may be completely unrelated – different origins, no shared commits), dirsync reads up to 300 commits from each repo and builds a per-file timeline.

• If file X was last touched in LEFT more recently than in RIGHT → marked git: LEFT newer → auto mode copies LEFT → RIGHT automatically.
• If both sides have commits but timestamps are equal → Conflict.
• The git history popup (g) shows the last 8 commits per side.

Architecture

src/
├── main.rs          Entry point, mode dispatch
├── cli.rs           Clap argument definitions
├── scanner.rs       Directory walk, SHA-256 hash, binary detection
├── diff.rs          Diff computation (similar crate), merge attempt
├── git_history.rs   Git repo discovery, commit timeline, per-file history
├── merge.rs         File copy/delete operations for all sync modes
└── ui.rs            Full Ratatui TUI (side-by-side diff, popups, actions)