rex-git

A git side pane for the terminal, styled after Axel. It shows the branch and how far it is from its upstream, the changed files, and recent commits. You can read diffs, stage files, write a commit message (or have Claude draft it), commit, push and pull, all from a narrow pane next to your work.

rex-git is a standalone program that works in any terminal, next to tmux, in a split of your terminal app, or on its own. In Rex and Axel it does more: see Integrations.

Install

With Homebrew:

brew install owlnai/tap/rex-git

Or with the installer, on macOS or Linux:

curl -LsSf https://github.com/owlnai/rex-git/releases/latest/download/rex-git-installer.sh | sh

Or from source, with Rust: cargo install --git https://github.com/owlnai/rex-git.

Run rex-git [DIR] in any terminal. It opens on DIR, or on the current directory. Press ? inside for every key. In Rex, open it next to the pane you're in:

rex split --split=right --ratio 30 --label git --focus=false -- rex-git

Drafting commit messages uses the Claude Code CLI, claude, with Haiku. Without it, everything else works.

A tour

Files

The header has the folder and branch, how far the branch is from its upstream, and when it last fetched. Click the sync state (↑3 to push, ✓ synced…) to sync: it publishes a new branch, or fetches, pulls --ff-only and pushes.

Files are grouped as staged, changed and untracked, with the lines each one adds and removes. Space or a click on ● stages and unstages, a and u stage and unstage everything. Files a merge or rebase left in conflict come first, under conflicts; Space marks one resolved once its <<<<<<< markers are gone, and a waits until every conflict is. Below them are the last three commits, the older ones fading out.

The bottom line shows the keys that fit what you're doing, and clicking one presses it.

Diffs

Enter or a click opens a file's diff. Added lines are on green, removed lines on red, and within an edited line the words that changed are brighter. Instead of @@ hunk headers, every line has its number, and the lines left out between changes show as ⋯ 3 unchanged lines · fn f26(), with the function they're in when git can tell.

n and N move between files, s stages, and e shows more context (3, 10 or 30 lines, as the hint says). They act on the file on screen, and the diff reloads when that file changes. o opens the file in $EDITOR at its first change, and in Rex, z zooms the pane to fill its window. Esc goes back, and puts the layout back if you zoomed.

Committing

c opens the commit box, which takes the list's place while you write, with the staged count and the subject's length on its border (yellow past 50, red past 72). Enter commits, Shift+Enter adds a line, Ctrl+E opens the message in $EDITOR, and ↑ ↓ and the wheel scroll a long message. Pasting a message keeps its lines instead of committing at the first one.

Tab asks Claude to draft the message, or to finish the one you started, keeping your words. When something is staged and the box is empty, c drafts one for you. With nothing staged, Enter asks first: Enter again stages everything and commits, s goes back to pick files.

Commit graph

g shows the current branch's history with its lanes, branches and tags. a switches to every branch and tag, r refreshes, and Esc or g goes back.

Worktrees

In a linked worktree, the header says which repo it belongs to (worktree of work). w lists every checkout of the repo with its branch and how many files it changed, and Enter or a click switches rex-git to it. A message you were writing waits in its worktree until you come back.

Errors

Messages like pushed 2 commits fade after a few seconds. An error stays in place of the keys until your next key or click, and shows git's fatal: line rather than its closing advice. When there's more to it, ! more says so, and ! shows the last error in full. The fetch every 3 minutes fails quietly, as when you're offline.

Keys

Press ? inside for this list.

Key
↑ ↓ j k	Move
Enter, click	Show the file's diff
o / O	Open the file in $EDITOR at its first change, in a pane / a new tab (in Rex)
z	Zoom the pane to fill the window, in a diff or the graph (in Rex)
Space, click ●	Stage or unstage the file, or mark a conflict resolved
a / u	Stage everything / unstage everything
c	Write the commit message (drafted for you when something is staged)
Tab	Draft a commit message with Claude
g	Show the commit graph
w	Switch to another worktree
Click ✓ synced, ↑2 to push…	Sync: publish the branch, or fetch, pull --ff-only and push
p / P / f	Push / pull --ff-only / fetch (it also fetches every 3 minutes)
t	Stage the files from the agents' latest turn (with Axel)
!	Show the last error in full
q	Quit

Integrations

Everything above works in any terminal, with nothing else installed. When rex-git finds itself in Rex, or in an Axel thread, it does more.

Rex

Rex is a terminal multiplexer: tabs, each with panes you split and drag around. In a Rex pane, rex-git:

• Follows your shell. When a shell in the same Rex window cds into another repo or worktree, rex-git switches to it. It waits while you write a message, and stays put when the shell leaves for a folder that isn't a repo. This needs a shell that reports its directory, as fish does by default.
• Opens your editor beside it. o and Ctrl+E open $EDITOR in a new pane next to the biggest pane in the window, instead of taking over rex-git's narrow one, and O opens it in a new tab. Drag the pane wherever you like; when the editor exits, it closes and you're back in rex-git. The file opens at its first change in vim, Neovim, nano, Emacs, Helix, VS Code and others that take a line. Elsewhere, both keys open the editor in rex-git's own pane.
• Zooms for diffs. z gives a diff or the graph the whole window, and leaving it, or quitting, puts the layout back.
• Titles its pane with the branch and how far it is from its upstream, like git · main ↑2.

Axel

Axel runs coding agents in Rex, one window per thread. On top of the Rex features, rex-git adds:

• A pane in every thread window. The watcher in axel/ opens rex-git beside the conversation in each new Axel thread window whose workspace is a git repository, on that thread's worktree or project. Close the pane and it stays closed for that window. Install it once:

  curl -LsSf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/owlnai/rex-git/main/axel/install.sh | sh

  It installs rex-git too if it's missing. On macOS it starts the watcher now and at every login with a LaunchAgent; elsewhere, keep rex do ~/.config/rex/axel-git.lua --all running. Run it again with --uninstall (sh -s -- --uninstall when piping) to remove it.

  I will try to add Linux and Windows support future, but right now I'm only using Mac. Feel free to experiment and submit a PR if you find a way!

• What the agents changed. The header names the thread's agents, and files they changed are marked: ◆ in their latest turn that changed files, ◇ in an earlier one. t stages the latest turn's files. rex-git finds the thread working in its directory by itself, or takes one with --thread ID.

• Commit messages that know why. The draft is written with the thread's intent, so it can say what the change was for.

To know which turns changed files, rex-git reads Axel's database (~/.axel/axel.db, read-only) and then asks axel thread diff --stat for each of those turns. The database isn't a public interface, so a new Axel version may change it. If it does, rex-git falls back to the latest turn only.

Notes

• Git runs with prompts turned off (GIT_TERMINAL_PROMPT=0, and SSH in batch mode), so a push that needs a password fails with a message instead of taking over the pane. Your own core.sshCommand, GIT_SSH_COMMAND or GIT_SSH is kept. Signed commits work when your GPG pinentry is a GUI one, such as pinentry-mac.
• Set REX_GIT_DEBUG=/path/to/log to log every input event, which helps when a key doesn't do what you expect.

License

MIT