Ramulus

A local-first Git GUI. Every branch in one graph, editor-grade diffs, and your repositories in a sidebar. No account, no cloud, no telemetry.

npx ramulus

Run it inside any git repository, or pass a path: npx ramulus ~/code/app. Run it in a folder that holds several repositories, such as ~/code, and it offers to open each one in the sidebar. Run it in a repository that has others in its subfolders, and it offers those too. Ramulus starts a small server on 127.0.0.1 on top of the git you already have and opens the UI in your browser. It needs Node 20 or newer and git, and works on macOS, Windows and Linux.

Download the demo in full quality (MP4, 1.4 MB)

Why Ramulus

• Your git, unchanged. Every operation runs through the git binary you already use, so SSH keys, credential helpers, hooks and LFS behave exactly as they do in the terminal.
• Nothing leaves your machine unless you ask. The server listens on 127.0.0.1 and every request carries a per-run token. The only outside requests are your own git remotes, avatar lookups on gravatar.com, and, if you turn it on, the AI agent you already use.
• One command. No installer, no sign-in, no license key. Close the terminal and it is gone.

Ramulus is Latin for a small branch.

Features

History you can read

• A lane graph with merge, stash and work-in-progress nodes, author avatars, and one label per branch with ahead and behind counts against its upstream.
• Search commits by message, author, hash or ref. Solo one or two branches to see only their history.
• The checked-out branch is a solid label with a check mark, sits first in the branch list, and is a chip in the toolbar that switches branches.
• Double-click a remote branch to switch to its local branch and bring it up to date. Your uncommitted changes come along, and a branch with commits of its own is switched to but never rewritten.
• Drag a branch label onto a commit to merge or rebase. A lifted copy follows the pointer and says what the drop will do, the graph scrolls at its edges, and Esc cancels. Right-click any commit, branch, tag or stash for checkout, new branch, tag, cherry-pick, revert, reset, rename and delete.
• Fetch, pull (merge, fast-forward only or rebase) and push. When a merge or rebase stops on conflicts, a banner offers Continue and Abort.

Diffs and staging

• Every file you click opens as a tab in one floating diff window. Move it, resize it from any edge, or maximize it. The graph and the file lists stay usable underneath.
• The diff runs on Monaco, the open-source editor component: side by side or inline, a +/− gutter, folded unchanged regions, syntax highlighting and word wrap.
• Stage, unstage or discard one change block from the small toolbar beside it. Edit the working-tree side and save with ⌘S.
• Staging writes whole file contents rather than patches, so line endings and byte-order marks survive exactly. If a file changed underneath you, the write is refused instead of guessed.

Repositories in tabs

• Open several repositories at once from recent repositories, the system folder picker, a typed path, or the repositories found in the folder you started from. They live in a left sidebar that stays docked or auto-hides, with pinned repositories at the top and ⌘⇧A to search. Each one keeps its own selection, filters and draft commit message.
• Pull all (fast-forward only) and Fetch all update every open repository at once.
• Rebase with uncommitted changes: they are stashed and put back for you, and the rebase can be undone afterwards. A rejected push offers rebase, merge or a safe force push instead of an error.
• Only the visible tab watches its folder, so hidden tabs cost nothing and catch up when you come back.
• Light and dark themes, or any color scheme from terminalcolors.com: paste the link of its page and the whole app, the diff and the agent terminal take its colors.
• Resizable panels, tree or flat file lists with +/− counts, and a status bar with branch, sync and change counts.

Your AI agent, if you want one

• Ramulus looks for Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI and opencode on your PATH and asks before using any of them. Pick one if several are installed. Each uses its own sign-in, so there is no API key to add.
• The sparkle in the commit box drafts a message from the staged changes, and the one in the new-branch dialog suggests a name. Both fill the field for you to review and edit.
• The agent terminal (⌃`) runs the agent's own interactive tool in a panel at the bottom, in the repository's folder, so you can chat with it as you would in your own terminal. The sparkle on a conflicted file pastes a resolve prompt into it without sending it, so you can change it first. The agent then edits the file with its own approvals, and the result shows up as an unstaged change for you to review.
• Every prompt can be edited in AI agent settings in the command palette.

Keyboard

Use Ctrl instead of ⌘ on Windows and Linux.

Other ways to run it

In the browser, nothing installed

a-ahandani.github.io/ramulus runs the same UI with git reimplemented in JavaScript over the File System Access API (Chrome and Edge). It is slower on large repositories, cannot use SSH, and has no rebase, cherry-pick or revert. Details in web/README.md.

Native macOS app

A separate native client written in Rust with egui and libgit2. It covers the graph, staging and day-to-day operations; repository tabs, the diff window and the newer look currently live in the browser UI.

Get Ramulus-<version>-macos-arm64.dmg from Releases, open it and drag Ramulus.app to Applications. Until the build is notarized, macOS reports a downloaded copy as damaged; clear the download flag once:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Ramulus.app

To build it yourself you need Rust and git:

git clone https://github.com/a-ahandani/ramulus.git && cd ramulus
scripts/bundle-mac.sh --install     # builds Ramulus.app and the .dmg, copies the app to /Applications
cargo install --path . && ramulus /path/to/repo   # or just the binary

RAMULUS_SIGN_IDENTITY and RAMULUS_NOTARY_PROFILE make the bundle script produce a signed, notarized build.

Develop

cd web && npm install && npm run dev   # browser UI with hot reload, served over the helper
npm test                               # in web/ and cli/
cargo run -- /path/to/repo             # native app
cargo test

npm run dev serves this repository by default; set RAMULUS_REPO=/path/to/repo for another one. Discard and Save write real files, so point it at a scratch clone when trying those. Design decisions are written down in docs/ux.md.

To release the npm helper, run npm version patch --no-git-tag-version in cli/, push that to main, then push a matching tag such as cli-v0.5.1. The Publish workflow runs the tests on Linux, macOS and Windows, then publishes to npm through trusted publishing, with provenance and no stored token.

License

MIT. Bundled third-party components and their licenses are listed in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.