sjiek

README

Archived 2026-08-21. Built for the 2025 workflow of hand-carrying git diff into a chat window — a problem agentic coding tools have since removed. The genesis project of the QRY tool family; the demo gif is the best part. Read-only from here.

sjiek 🪄

"🫦 chew on this 🫦"

sjiek is a command-line tool designed to help you quickly generate git diff outputs of your current code changes. It saves these diffs to a file and can copy them to your clipboard, making it easy to provide context to Large Language Models (LLMs) or share your work-in-progress.

It features an optional interactive mode powered by Charm Gum for a user-friendly experience, but defaults to fast, non-interactive operation for quick use.

(sjiek is Dutch/Flemish for "gum" and a homonym for the French "chic." It's pronounced "sheek" or /ʃik/.)

🤖 AI Collaboration Transparency

This project documentation and development has been enhanced through systematic AI collaboration following QRY Labs methodology:

• Human-Centered Development: All core functionality, architecture decisions, and strategic direction remain human-controlled
• AI-Enhanced Documentation: AI assistants help improve documentation quality and systematic presentation
• Transparent Attribution: AI collaboration is acknowledged openly as part of QRY's commitment to ethical technology use
• LLM Context Generation: sjiek specifically facilitates AI collaboration by generating git diff context for LLMs
• Systematic Methodology: AI collaboration follows structured procedures documented in /ai/ directory

Core Principle: AI enhances human capability rather than replacing human judgment. sjiek exemplifies this by enabling better AI collaboration through systematic context generation while keeping humans in control of code changes and strategic decisions.

Demo

Features

• Generate git diffs for:
  • All uncommitted changes (staged and unstaged).
  • Only staged changes (what's ready for commit).
  • Only unstaged changes (current work not yet staged).
• Fast non-interactive default operation.
• Optional user-friendly interactive mode using gum for selecting options on-the-fly.
• Save diff output to a configurable directory and filename.
• Optionally add a timestamp to filenames for easy versioning of diffs.
• Optionally copy the diff content directly to the system clipboard.
• Optional startup intro animation (because why not?).
• Built as a single, portable binary with Go.

Requirements

• Git: sjiek operates on Git repositories and uses git commands.
• Gum (for interactive mode & intro): Charm Gum must be installed and accessible in your system's PATH for the interactive (-i) mode and the startup intro (--intro) to function with their TUIs.
• Shell (sh): Required by the interactive mode's gum integration for gum choose and gum input. This is standard on Linux and macOS.
• (Optional) Clipboard utility: For the clipboard copy feature (-c) to work effectively, your operating system needs a clipboard utility that github.com/atotto/clipboard (the Go library used) can interface with.
  • Linux/X11: xclip or xsel (e.g., sudo apt install xclip)
  • Linux/Wayland: wl-clipboard (e.g., sudo apt install wl-clipboard)
  • macOS: pbcopy/pbpaste (comes pre-installed)
  • Windows: Should work out-of-the-box.

Installation

Using go install (Recommended)

(Replace yourusername with your actual GitHub username)

go install github.com/yourusername/sjiek@latest

This command will download the source code, compile it, and place the sjiek binary in your $GOPATH/bin directory (or $HOME/go/bin if GOPATH is not set). Ensure this directory is included in your system's PATH environment variable.

Building from Source

1. Clone the repository: (Replace yourusername with your actual GitHub username)

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/sjiek.git
   cd sjiek
   

2. Build the binary: (Consider using the build_and_install.sh script provided in the repository for convenience)

   go build -o sjiek .
   

   This creates an executable file named sjiek in the current directory.
3. Move the binary to a directory in your PATH: For example, to ~/.local/bin:

   mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
   mv sjiek ~/.local/bin/
   

   (Ensure ~/.local/bin is in your PATH.)

Usage

sjiek defaults to a fast, non-interactive mode using pre-set defaults. Use the -i flag for an interactive experience.

sjiek [flags]

Flags

• -o <directory>: Specifies the output directory for the diff file.
  • Default: ~/llm_context_diffs (or ./sjiek_diffs if home is not accessible).
• -n <filename>: Sets the filename for the diff file.
  • Default: current_diff.txt.
• --diff-type <type>: Determines the type of git diff to generate.
  • Options:
    • all (default): All uncommitted changes (staged & unstaged).
    • staged: Only staged changes.
    • unstaged: Only unstaged changes.
• -t: Appends a timestamp (e.g., _YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS) to the filename.
• -c: Copies the generated diff content to the system clipboard.
• -i: Run in interactive mode using gum to select options.
• --intro: Show the startup intro animation (requires gum).
• --help: Displays this help message.

Default (Non-Interactive) Mode

Running sjiek without any flags (or with specific operational flags like -n, -o, -c, -t, --diff-type but without -i) will execute immediately using default values or the flags provided.

# Fast diff with all defaults (all changes, to ~/llm_context_diffs/current_diff.txt)
sjiek

# Diff all changes, copy to clipboard, use default filename & output dir
sjiek -c

# Diff staged changes, specific filename, default output dir
sjiek --diff-type staged -n my_staged_changes.diff

Interactive Mode

To use the interactive TUI for selecting options, use the -i flag:

sjiek -i

If you also want the startup intro with interactive mode:

sjiek -i --intro

In interactive mode, you will be guided by gum prompts to:

1. Select the desired diff type.
2. Enter the output directory.
3. Enter the filename.
4. Confirm timestamping.
5. Confirm copying to clipboard.

Examples

1. Quick default diff (all changes, default file/location):

   sjiek
   

2. Run interactively for guided setup:

   sjiek -i
   

3. Show intro then run interactively:

   sjiek --intro 
   

   (Note: If only --intro is provided, sjiek will run interactively after the intro.)

4. Generate a diff of all changes, name it latest_updates.diff, copy to clipboard (non-interactive):

   sjiek -n latest_updates.diff -c
   

5. Get only staged changes, save to a timestamped file in ~/project_diffs/ (non-interactive):

   sjiek --diff-type staged -o "~/project_diffs/" -t
   

Development

This project is built with Go.

• Clone the repository.
• Ensure Go (version 1.20 or newer is recommended) is installed.
• Fetch dependencies: go mod tidy
• Build: go build -o sjiek . (or use ./build_and_install.sh)
• Run tests (if any are added in the future): go test ./...

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.