whatisgithub

What is comview?

rockorager/comview — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

47GoAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5Setup · easy

In one sentence

A terminal app for viewing and commenting on git diffs, with vim-style navigation instead of a browser.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((comview))
    What it does
      Renders diffs in terminal
      Pipe in via CLI
      Combined or side by side
    Tech stack
      Go
      Make build
    Use cases
      Review pull requests
      Comment on lines
      Open file in editor
    Audience
      Developers
      Terminal users
    Navigation
      Vim style keys
      Jump between hunks
      Search text

Code map

Detail Auto

An interactive map of this repo's files and how they connect — its source is parsed live in your browser. Click Visualize to build it.

filefunction / class

What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Review a pull request's diff without leaving the terminal

USE CASE 2

Add local comments to specific lines while reviewing code

USE CASE 3

Compare two commits side by side using git diff or git show

USE CASE 4

Jump straight to a file in your editor from the diff view

What is it built with?

Go

How does it compare?

rockorager/comviewopen-gitagent/langship.shsaiyam1814/kiac
Stars474845
LanguageGoGoGo
Setup difficultyeasyhardmoderate
Complexity2/54/53/5
Audiencedeveloperops devopsops devops

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 30min

Install by cloning the repo and running make, no external services required.

So what is it?

Comview is a terminal-based program for viewing code diffs, the standard way of displaying what changed between two versions of a file, where added lines appear in green and removed lines appear in red. You pipe a diff directly into it from the command line and it renders the result in a clean, readable format inside your terminal window. It is designed as an alternative to viewing diffs in a web browser (like on GitHub's pull request pages) or in a basic terminal output. Instead, it provides a keyboard-driven interface with vim-style navigation keys, so you can move around the diff, jump between changed sections, search for specific text, and toggle between a combined and side-by-side view of the changes. You can also open the file at the cursor position directly in your editor. One distinctive feature is the ability to add comments to specific lines while reviewing, which are saved locally to a JSON file. This lets you take notes during a code review without leaving the terminal. The tool works with any standard unified diff format, so it works with git diff output, git show for viewing individual commits, or the output of tools like the GitHub command-line interface. It is written in Go and installed by cloning the repository and running a make command. The project describes itself plainly as a small terminal program that does one thing without requiring a web browser.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
How do I pipe git diff output into comview to review changes in my terminal?
Prompt 2
Show me how to clone and build comview from source using make.
Prompt 3
Explain how comview's vim-style keys let me jump between changed hunks and search text.
Prompt 4
How can I use comview with git show to review a single commit?

Frequently asked questions

What is comview?

A terminal app for viewing and commenting on git diffs, with vim-style navigation instead of a browser.

What language is comview written in?

Mainly Go. The stack also includes Go.

How hard is comview to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 30min to a first successful run.

Who is comview for?

Mainly developer.

Open on GitHub → Ask about another repo

This repo across BitVibe Labs

Verify against the repo before relying on details.