procat

README

procat

A command-line tool that concatenates all files in a project directory into a single file, respecting .gitignore rules. This is useful for feeding an entire project's context into a Large Language Model (LLM).

Features

• Recursively scans a directory.
• Intelligently ignores files and directories listed in .gitignore.
• Supports .catignore: Use a specific .catignore file to exclude files from concatenation without ignoring them in Git (e.g., pnpm-lock.json, package-lock.json).
• Skips binary files to keep the output clean.
• Wraps each file's content with clear Start and End markers.
• Outputs to a file, to standard output, or directly to the system clipboard.

Installation

To install procat, you need to have the Go toolchain installed on your system. Then, you can install the tool with a single command, which will download the source code, compile it, and place the executable in your Go binary path.

go install github.com/puffins-one/procat@latest

(Note: Make sure your GOPATH/bin directory is in your shell's PATH environment variable to run the command from anywhere.)

Usage

Usage: procat [options] <project_directory> [output_file]

Options: -c, --clipboard Copy output to the system clipboard. -x, --exclude Comma-separated list of extensions to exclude (e.g. "md,jpg").

The .catignore file

You can place a .catignore file in the root of your project directory. This works exactly like .gitignore, but it only affects procat.

This is useful for files you want to keep in version control but don't want to feed to an LLM (like massive lock files or specific documentation).

Example .catignore:

pnpm-lock.json
package-lock.json
*.svg
docs/

Examples

# Concatenate, skipping markdown and jpg files
procat -x md,jpg .

# Concatenate, exclude pngs, copy to clipboard
procat -c -x png .

# Concatenate and output to a file named 'project_context.txt'
procat . project_context.txt

# Concatenate and print to the terminal (standard output)
procat .

# Use a different project directory and copy to clipboard
procat -c /path/to/your/project