codebase-flattener

Flatten a codebase into a single file for easy LLM ingestion.

Features:

• Recursively walk your project, respecting .gitignore, .llmignore, and custom ignore rules.
• Skip the output file itself to avoid self-inclusion.
• Follow or ignore symlinks via a flag.
• Overridable output filename (default: codebase.txt).

📦 Installation

From Rust (crates.io)

Ensure you have Rust and Cargo installed (edition 2021+):

# Install from crates.io\ ncargo install codebase-flattener

Or build locally:

git clone https://github.com/szczuroskoczek/codebase-flattener.git
cd codebase-flattener
cargo build --release
# The binary will be in target/release/

From npm

You can also install via npm to use the published JavaScript CLI wrapper:

# Install globally
npm install -g codebase-flattener

# Or use npx without global install
npx codebase-flattener

🚀 Usage

Once installed (via Rust or npm), simply run:

codebase-flattener

Or with any combination of options:

# Add custom ignore files
codebase-flattener --ignore extra.ignore --ignore temp.ignore

# Disable all default ignore files
codebase-flattener --no-default-ignores --ignore only.ignore

# Don’t follow symlinks
codebase-flattener --no-follow

# Change the output filename
codebase-flattener --output project_dump.txt

All files are dumped into codebase.txt with separators:

<<< FILE: path/to/file.ext >>>
<file contents>

⚙️ Command-line Options

| Option | Description | | ------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ | | -i, --ignore <FILE> | Append a custom ignore filename (can be used multiple times) | | --no-default-ignores | Disable default .gitignore & .llmignore loading | | -n, --no-follow | Don’t follow symbolic links | | -o, --output <FILENAME> | Set the output file name (default: codebase.txt) | | -h, --help | Print help information | | -V, --version | Print version info |

🤝 Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/foo)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am "Add foo")
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/foo)
5. Open a pull request

We welcome improvements, bug fixes, and enhanced documentation!

📝 License

Licensed under MIT. See LICENSE for details.

Created by Krystian Mikołajczyk | Crates.io | npm | GitHub