glimpse

README

Glimpse: AI-Powered Micro-Reviewer

Glimpse is a lightweight, local daemon that watches your active repository. When files change, it captures the git diff and recent backend logs, feeds them to an LLM, and prints a concise engineering review to stdout.

It is designed for "Vibecoding"—maintaining flow state while getting instant feedback on correctness, security, and idiomatic Go patterns.

🚀 Installation

Go Install (Recommended)

go install github.com/revrost/glimpse@latest

This installs glimpse to your GOPATH/bin (usually ~/go/bin/). Make sure ~/go/bin is in your PATH.

Download Binaries

Grab pre-built binaries from the Releases page:

• Linux: glimpse-linux-amd64
• macOS: glimpse-darwin-amd64 (Intel) or glimpse-darwin-arm64 (Apple Silicon)
• Windows: glimpse-windows-amd64.exe

# Make executable (Linux/macOS)
chmod +x glimpse-*
mv glimpse-$(uname -s | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')-$(uname -m) glimpse

From Source

git clone https://github.com/revrost/glimpse
cd glimpse
make build  # or: go build -o glimpse .

Features

• 🔄 Real-time file watching with intelligent debouncing
• 📝 Git diff capture for staged and unstaged changes
• 📋 Log tailing integration with structured slog output
• 🤖 Multi-provider LLM support (OpenAI, Z.AI, Gemini, Ollama)
• ⚙️ Minimal YAML configuration with sensible defaults
• 🎯 Focused reviews for bugs, performance, and security issues
• 🖥️ Simple stdout interface with optional chat mode

Quick Start

1. Configure API Key

   export OPENAI_API_KEY="your-api-key-here"
   # or for Gemini
   export GEMINI_API_KEY="your-gemini-key-here"
   # or for Z.AI
   export ZAI_API_KEY="your-zai-key-here"
   

2. Create Configuration (.glimpse.yaml in repo root)

   watch:
     - "./internal/**/*.go"
     - "./pkg/**/*.go"
   ignore:
     - "*_test.go"
   logs:
     file: "./tmp/server.log"
     lines: 50
   llm:
     provider: "openai"
     model: "gpt-4o"
     system_prompt: "You are a Principal Go Engineer. Review strictly for bugs, perf, and slog context."
   

3. Start Your Application with Logging

   # Pipe app output to a file
   go run . | tee tmp/server.log
   

4. Start Glimpse

   glimpse
   # or if using local build:
   ./glimpse
   

Managing Your Installation

Update to Latest Version

go install github.com/revrost/glimpse@latest

Check Version

glimpse -version

Uninstall

rm $(which glimpse)

1. Make Code Changes

   Glimpse will automatically detect changes and provide reviews:

   --- Reviewing: internal/handlers/payment.go ---
   Analyzing with openai (gpt-4o)...
   
   🔍 **Code Review**:
   
   **Bug Risk**: Line 45 - Potential nil pointer dereference if payment.Customer is nil
   **Performance**: Consider using sync.Pool for频繁创建的 structs
   **Security**: Validate payment.Amount before processing to avoid overflow
   
   **Logs Context**: Recent errors show payment validation failures at 2023-12-07T14:23:11Z
   

Configuration

Glimpse uses a .glimpse.yaml file in the repository root. If not found, it uses sensible defaults.

Watch Configuration

watch:
  - "./internal/**/*.go"    # Watch Go files in internal directory
  - "./pkg/**/*.go"         # Watch Go files in pkg directory  
  - "./src/**/*.rs"         # Watch Rust files
ignore:
  - "*_test.go"             # Ignore test files
  - "*.generated.go"         # Ignore generated files
  - "vendor/**"             # Ignore vendor directory

Log Configuration

logs:
  file: "./tmp/server.log"   # Log file to tail
  lines: 50                 # Number of recent lines to include

LLM Configuration

llm:
  provider: "openai"         # openai, gemini, ollama, zai
  model: "gpt-4o"          # Model to use
  api_key: "optional-key"    # Can use env vars instead
  system_prompt: "You are a Principal Go Engineer. Review for bugs, performance, and security."

API Keys

API keys can be provided via:

1. Environment variables: OPENAI_API_KEY, GEMINI_API_KEY, ZAI_API_KEY
2. Configuration file: api_key field in llm section

Z.AI Setup

Z.AI provides access to GLM models including GLM-4.6:

llm:
  provider: "zai"
  model: "glm-4.6"          # GLM-4.6, glm-4-air, etc.

Set your API key:

export ZAI_API_KEY="your-zai-key-here"

Available Z.AI models:

• glm-4.6 - High-performance model
• glm-4-air - Lightweight, efficient model
• glm-4-32b - Large context model

Integration Workflow

The Unix Way

Glimpse follows Unix philosophy - do one thing well and compose with other tools:

# Terminal 1: Run your application
go run . | tee debug.log

# Terminal 2: Run Glimpse
./glimpse

# Terminal 3: Work on your code
vim internal/handlers/payment.go

Log Integration

Glimpse works excellently with structured slog output:

// In your application
logger := slog.New(slog.NewJSONHandler(os.Stdout, nil))

logger.Error("Payment processing failed",
    "customer_id", customerID,
    "amount", amount,
    "error", err,
)

Glimpse captures these structured logs and the LLM can parse them to correlate errors with your code changes.

LLM Providers

OpenAI

llm:
  provider: "openai"
  model: "gpt-4o"
  # Supports: gpt-4, gpt-4-turbo, gpt-3.5-turbo

Gemini (Coming Soon)

llm:
  provider: "gemini"
  model: "gemini-pro"
  # TODO: Implementation in progress

Ollama (Coming Soon)

llm:
  provider: "ollama"
  model: "llama2"
  # TODO: Local model support

Context Window Strategy

Glimpse sends a structured prompt to the LLM:

SYSTEM: [System Prompt]

CONTEXT:
1. File: internal/handlers/payment.go
2. Git Diff:
   [Output of git diff --unified=0 internal/handlers/payment.go]

3. Recent Runtime Logs (tail -n 50):
   [Raw content of server.log]

TASK:
Review the diff. If the logs show errors related to this logic, highlight them immediately.
Be concise.

Development

Building

go build -o glimpse

Testing

# Run all tests
go test ./...

# Run specific package tests
go test ./config
go test ./watcher

# Run with coverage
go test -cover ./...

Project Structure

glimpse/
├── main.go              # Entry point and orchestration
├── config/              # Configuration parsing
├── watcher/             # File system watching with debouncing
├── git/                 # Git operations (diff capture)
├── logs/                # Log tailing functionality
├── llm/                 # LLM client interface
└── test/                # Integration tests

Troubleshooting

No File Events Detected

• Ensure watch patterns match your file paths
• Check that directories exist when Glimpse starts
• Use ** for recursive patterns

LLM API Errors

• Verify API key is set correctly
• Check API quota and billing
• Try different model if rate limited

No Logs Available

• Ensure your application is piping output to the configured log file
• Check file permissions
• Verify log file path in configuration

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes with tests
4. Run go test ./... to ensure all tests pass
5. Submit a pull request

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

Roadmap

• Gemini API integration
• Ollama local model support
• Stdin chat mode for follow-up questions
• Configuration hot-reloading
• Webhook integration for CI/CD
• VS Code extension
• IntelliJ plugin

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Built with ❤️ for developers who value flow state and code quality.