Show HN: Deff – Side-by-side Git diff review in your terminal • Hacker News Board

Show HN: Deff – Side-by-side Git diff review in your terminal

#1

Post by flamestro » Thu, Feb 26, 2026, 5:54 PM UTC

deff is an interactive Rust TUI for reviewing git diffs side-by-side with syntax highlighting and added/deleted line tinting. It supports keyboard/mouse navigation, vim-style motions, in-diff search (/, n, N), per-file reviewed toggles, and both upstream-based and explicit --base/--head comparisons. It can also include uncommitted + untracked files (--include-uncommitted) so you can review your working tree before committing.

Would love to get some feedback

Show HN: Deff – Side-by-side Git diff review in your terminal
github.com

Re: Show HN: Deff – Side-by-side Git diff review in your terminal

#2

Post by meain » Thu, Feb 26, 2026, 6:53 PM UTC

I have been using https://github.com/jeffkaufman/icdiff for the longest time to get side by side diffs.

Re: Show HN: Deff – Side-by-side Git diff review in your terminal

#3

Post by lf-non » Thu, Feb 26, 2026, 7:01 PM UTC

meain wrote: post #2

I have been using https://github.com/jeffkaufman/icdiff for the longest time to get side by side diffs.

I also use icdiff, but it is good to have the file-awareness for git diff esp. the ability to quickly skip files that I know aren't important.

Re: Show HN: Deff – Side-by-side Git diff review in your terminal

#4

Post by rileymichael » Thu, Feb 26, 2026, 7:03 PM UTC

getting users to adopt a new tool with its own incantations is a tough sell. git supports specifying an external pager so folks can plug in alternatives (such as https://github.com/dandavison/delta) while still using the familiar git frontend

Re: Show HN: Deff – Side-by-side Git diff review in your terminal

#5

Post by yottamus » Thu, Feb 26, 2026, 7:13 PM UTC

    git difftool --tool=vimdiff

Re: Show HN: Deff – Side-by-side Git diff review in your terminal

#6

Post by metalliqaz » Thu, Feb 26, 2026, 7:21 PM UTC

yottamus wrote: post #5

git difftool --tool=vimdiff

but is it blazingly fast?

Re: Show HN: Deff – Side-by-side Git diff review in your terminal

#7

Post by llbbdd » Thu, Feb 26, 2026, 7:27 PM UTC

I was looking for a good TUI tool for diffs recently, but I'm not sure yet if what I want exists already (and I don't think this tool does it (yet?)). I've been moving my workflow out of VSCode as I'm using TUI-driven coding agents more often lately but one thing I miss from my VSCode/GitHub workflow is the ability to provide a comment on lines or ranges in a diff to provide targeted feedback to the agent. Most diff tools seem to be (rightfully) focused on cleanly visualizing changes and not necessarily iterating on the change.

I admit I haven't looked super hard yet, I settled on configuring git to use delta [0] for now and I'm happy with it, but I'm curious if anyone has a workflow for reviewing/iterating on diffs in the terminal that they'd be willing to share. Also open to being told that I'm lightyears behind and that there's a better mental model for this.

[0] https://github.com/dandavison/delta/

Re: Show HN: Deff – Side-by-side Git diff review in your terminal

#8

Post by jamiecode » Thu, Feb 26, 2026, 7:28 PM UTC

[dead]

Re: Show HN: Deff – Side-by-side Git diff review in your terminal

#9

Post by ZoomZoomZoom » Thu, Feb 26, 2026, 7:30 PM UTC

Why shouldn't this be a simple wrapper to tie Delta to some kind of file browser or a thing like television[1]?

[1]: https://alexpasmantier.github.io/television/

Re: Show HN: Deff – Side-by-side Git diff review in your terminal

#10

Post by Amorymeltzer » Thu, Feb 26, 2026, 7:32 PM UTC

lf-non wrote: post #3

meain wrote: post #2

I have been using https://github.com/jeffkaufman/icdiff for the longest time to get side by side diffs.

I also use icdiff, but it is good to have the file-awareness for git diff esp. the ability to quickly skip files that I know aren't important.

For that in particular, I use delta (https://github.com/dandavison/delta>) with `side-by-side = true` enabled. I find I use both icdiff and delta side-by-side on a regular basis.