revision

README

revision

A lazygit-style terminal UI for Subversion (SVN). revision gives you a fast, keyboard-driven interface over the svn command line — review changes, stage with changelists, commit, update, and browse history without leaving your terminal.

Why

SVN's command line is powerful but verbose for day-to-day work. revision wraps it in a focused TUI — inspired by lazygit — so common tasks are a keystroke away. It shells out to your existing svn binary, so it respects your working copy, credentials, and configuration.

Features

• lazygit-style layout — a left column of Status, Files, and Log panels beside a Main detail view, with number-key and Tab focus switching; scroll any panel on both axes, with scrollbars that show what's off-screen
• Working-copy status at a glance — changes colored by state, over a live repo/revision header
• Changed files as a collapsible directory tree — each change grouped under its folder, expanded or collapsed with enter
• Colour-coded diff viewer that follows your selection — additions, deletions, hunk headers, and metadata each tinted, with the +/- gutter pinned as you scroll; highlight a directory for the combined diff of everything beneath it
• Staging via a SVN changelist (a git-index-like workflow) — stage or unstage a single file, or a whole directory subtree, with one keystroke
• Named changelists — group the whole staged set (or just one file) in a tabbed Changelists view, drill into any list, and commit it as a unit
• Commit the staged set (or a chosen changelist) through an inline message editor
• Update the working copy to HEAD
• Add / revert / delete files, with confirmation prompts before anything destructive
• Read-only log / history viewer with full revision numbers and authors, plus per-revision detail (date, message, changed paths)
• Discoverable keybindings — a contextual footer plus a full ? help menu
• Toast notifications for every action, success or failure
• Non-blocking authentication — clear, actionable hints instead of a hung credential prompt

Requirements

• The svn command-line client on your PATH
• Run revision from inside an SVN working copy (or pass --path)

Install

revision is a single self-contained binary.

Quick install (Linux / macOS)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bapatchirag/revision/main/install.sh | sh

The script detects your OS and architecture, downloads the matching binary from the latest release, and installs it without sudo (falling back to ~/.local/bin).

With Go

go install github.com/bapatchirag/revision/cmd/revision@latest

Prebuilt binaries

Download the binary for your platform from the Releases page and put it on your PATH.

Usage

# from inside an SVN working copy
revision

# or point it at a working copy
revision --path /path/to/working-copy

Flags:

• --path <dir> — working copy to operate on (default: current directory)
• --version — print version and exit
• --help — show help

Keybindings

The footer shows the most common actions, and ? opens the full keybindings menu at any time.

Key	Action
1 / 2 / 3 / 0	Focus the Status / Files / Log / Main panel
Tab / Shift+Tab	Cycle focus between panels
↑/k, ↓/j	Move the selection up / down
g / G	Jump to the top / bottom of a list
K / J	Scroll the Main panel up / down a page
←/h, →/l	Scroll the focused panel left / right (one column)
Home / End (^ / $)	Jump to the start / end of the line in the focused panel
[ / ]	Switch the Files panel between the Changes and Changelists views
space	Stage / unstage the selected file — or every change under the selected directory (an untracked file is svn added first)
n	Assign the staged set — or just the selected file when nothing is staged — to a named changelist
enter	Expand / collapse the selected directory, or expand a changelist into its files
c	Commit the staged files, or the selected changelist (opens the message editor)
r	Revert the selected file (with confirmation)
d	Delete the selected file (with confirmation)
u	Update the working copy to the latest revision
R	Refresh status and history
?	Toggle the keybindings help
q / Ctrl+C	Quit

In the commit editor, Ctrl+S submits and Esc cancels. In the changelist-name prompt, Tab toggles between typing a new name and picking an existing changelist. In a confirmation dialog, Enter/y confirms and Esc/n cancels.

How staging works

SVN has no local staging index. revision emulates one using an SVN changelist named revision:staged: staging a file — or every change under a directory — adds it to that changelist, unstaging removes it, and c commits the staged set as a unit. This maps a git-like stage/commit flow onto native SVN.

You can also group work into named changelists with n: it moves the staged files (or just the selected file when nothing is staged) into a real SVN changelist, which appears in the Changelists view and can be committed on its own. A file belongs to at most one changelist at a time — unstage it (space) before moving it elsewhere.

Authentication

revision always runs svn with --non-interactive, so it never blocks on a hidden credential prompt. If a command needs credentials that aren't cached, it fails fast with a clear hint instead of hanging.

Cache your credentials once by running an svn command yourself in the working copy (for example svn info or svn update). SVN stores them, and revision uses them on subsequent actions.

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/bapatchirag/revision.git
cd revision
make build      # builds ./bin/revision
make test

Cross-compile static binaries:

make cross      # dist/revision-darwin-arm64 and dist/revision-linux-amd64

Roadmap

revision already covers the everyday SVN workflow. On the horizon:

• VS Code extension — a bundled launcher that opens the TUI in an editor terminal, published to the VS Code Marketplace and Open VSX. The scaffolding exists but isn't ready yet.
• Configuration file — settings from a config file (e.g. ~/.config/revision/config.toml): default working-copy path, log limit, an external $EDITOR for commit messages, and keybinding overrides.
• Theming — selectable, user-customizable color themes loaded from that configuration.
• Diff export & patching — save a file's or a changelist's diff as a patch and apply one (svn diff → patch → svn patch), plus line- and hunk-level staging.
• ssh-agent support — seamless authentication for svn+ssh:// working copies, alongside smoother handling of cached credentials.
• Branches & tags — create and switch between them as server-side copies (svn copy / svn switch).
• More review tools — blame / annotate, revision search and filtering, and conflict-resolution helpers.

Have an idea or want to help build one of these? Contributions are welcome.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome — bug reports, feature ideas, and documentation fixes all help.

Project layout

revision is a Go module with a layered, lazygit-inspired architecture:

• cmd/revision — the CLI entry point (flag parsing, working-copy detection, launching the TUI).
• cmd/gallery — a standalone gallery that renders each reusable UI component in isolation (make run-gallery).
• internal/svn — a thin wrapper over the svn binary that parses --xml output into typed values; always runs --non-interactive.
• internal/tui — the domain-agnostic UI foundation: reusable components plus theme, keymap, focus, layout, and messages. It must never import internal/svn or internal/app (a reusability-guard test enforces this).
• internal/app — the composition layer that adapts SVN data into components and arranges the lazygit layout. It is the only package that knows both sides.

Development

make build        # compile ./bin/revision
make run          # run the TUI from source
make run-gallery  # preview the reusable components in isolation
make test         # run all tests
make lint         # run golangci-lint (must be installed)
make fmt          # gofmt the tree

Before opening a PR, please make sure make fmt, make lint, and make test all pass. New UI components should follow the existing contracts — compile-time interface assertions, a golden test over View(), and a teatest harness — and nothing under internal/tui may reach into the SVN or app layers.

Some tests drive a real svn binary against a throwaway repository; they skip automatically when svn/svnadmin aren't on the PATH.

Regenerating the demo

The hero GIF is produced with VHS from a scripted tape:

vhs docs/demo.tape   # writes docs/hero.gif

The tape builds a throwaway SVN working copy via docs/demo-setup.sh, so it needs vhs, svn/svnadmin, and a Go toolchain.

License

MIT © Chirag Bapat