Feature Overview

A detailed look at what gitinspect can do and how each feature works.

Core Features

Local Repository Support

Walk the worktree, read file contents, and respect .gitignore. Binary files and non-UTF-8 content are automatically skipped.

gitinspect inspect /path/to/local/repo

Remote Repository Support

Shallow clone (--depth 1) into a temp directory, analyze, and clean up. Snapshots are cached by commit hash so repeated inspections are instant.

gitinspect inspect https://github.com/user/repo.git

Token Budget Management

Estimate tokens as len(content)/4. Sort files by priority. Stop when the budget is exceeded. If a single file exceeds the budget, include it but truncate the content.

gitinspect inspect --max-tokens 4000 .

File Priority Sorting

Files are sorted by importance before inclusion:

Priority	Files
4 (highest)	README*
3	main.*, cmd/*/main.*
2	go.mod, package.json, Cargo.toml, setup.py, Gemfile, requirements.txt
1	Makefile, Dockerfile, docker-compose.yml
0	All other files

Include/Exclude Globs

Filter files using glob patterns. Supports ** for recursive matching.

gitinspect inspect --include "**/*.go" --exclude "**/vendor/*" .

Output Formats

Three output formats for different use cases:

• JSON — Structured data for programmatic consumption
• Text — Human-readable, pipe-friendly output
• YAML — Configuration-friendly format

gitinspect inspect --format json .
gitinspect inspect --format text .
gitinspect inspect --format yaml .

Dependency Extraction

Automatically parse dependency manifests:

File	Format	Example Output
go.mod	Go modules	github.com/go-git/go-git/v5@v5.12.0
package.json	Node.js	react@^18.0.0
Cargo.toml	Rust	serde@1.0
requirements.txt	Python	flask==2.0
Gemfile	Ruby	rails

Comment Stripping

Remove single-line comments and blank lines based on file extension:

• // for Go, C, C++, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, Rust, Kotlin, Swift
• # for Python, Shell, YAML, TOML, Ruby, R, PowerShell
• -- for SQL, Lua, Haskell
• ; for Assembly

gitinspect inspect --strip .

Binary File Detection

Automatically skips binary files (images, executables, archives, fonts, databases, etc.) and non-UTF-8 content. No garbled output in your snapshots.

Caching

Remote repo snapshots are cached in ~/.cache/gitinspect/ keyed by sha256(repo_url + commit_hash) with a 1-hour TTL. Disable with --no-cache.

gitinspect inspect https://github.com/user/repo.git          # First run: clones
gitinspect inspect https://github.com/user/repo.git          # Second run: cached
gitinspect inspect --no-cache https://github.com/user/repo.git  # Force fresh

HTTP Server

Run as an HTTP server with a POST /inspect endpoint for programmatic access.

gitinspect serve --port 8080

MCP Server (AI Agents)

Built-in MCP server over stdio for AI agent integration. Two tools:

• inspect_repo — Full inspection with file contents, dependencies, and stats
• list_repo_files — Lightweight file listing with priority scores and token estimates

gitinspect mcp

See MCP Integration for agent configuration.