git-explorer

Overview

Git Explorer is a local development tool that provides offline-first support for previewing and comparing branches in a local git repository.

Usage

You can use the project locally on your system a couple different ways, depending on your preference. You will need to have NodeJS LTS installed on your machine.

After running these commands, you can view the explorer web app in your browser at localhost:3000.

One Time (npx)

Use npx to use the project (while online) for any local repository you have.

$ cd /path/to/your/repo
$ npx git-explorer

This approach will always use the latest version of git-explorer published to npm.

Offline (global npm / Yarn)

By installing git-explorer globally, you can aceess the tool even if you're offline! Just use your preferred package manager's global installation command and then run the tool from the directory of your local repository.

# npm
$ npm install -g git-explorer

# or with Yarn
$ yarn add --global git-explorer

# now run git-explorer from your local repo
$ cd path/to/your/repo
$ git-explorer

To upgrade your global install of git-explorer to a newer version, just re-run the global installation command again.

Options

Port

By default, Git Explorer runs on port 3000. To run it on a different port, you can pass a custom --port flag. Example:

$ npx git-explorer --port 4200

Open

To automatically open the default browser on start of the server, you can pass a custom --open flag. Example:

$ npx git-explorer --open

Contributing

Contributions are welcome either in the form of code or ideas!

Ideas / Feature Requests

See something you want to have included in Git Explorer? Feel free to open an issue, and if you're feeling ambition, submit a PR!

Development

To develop for the project, make sure you have NodeJS and Git installed.

Then, you can do the following:

1. Clone the repo
2. Run npm ci
3. Run npm start

You should now be able to see the project running on localhost:3000

Note: If you make changes to src/server.js, make sure to restart the server by killing the server and re-running npm start