yek

A fast Rust based tool to serialize text-based files in a repository or directory for LLM consumption.¹

By default:

• Uses .gitignore rules to skip unwanted files.
• Uses the Git history to infer what files are more important.
• Infers additional ignore patterns (binary, large, etc.).
• Automatically detects if output is being piped and streams content instead of writing to files.
• Supports processing multiple directories in a single command.
• Supports glob patterns and individual file selection.
• Configurable via a yek.yaml file.

Yek يک means "One" in Farsi/Persian.

Consider having a simple repo like this:

.
├── README.md
├── src
│   ├── main.rs
│   └── utils.rs
└── tests
    └── test.rs

Running yek in this directory will produce a single file and write it to the temp directory with the following content:

>>>> README.md
... content ...
>>>> tests/test.rs
... content ...
>>>> src/utils.rs
... content ...
>>>> src/main.rs
... content ...

Note

yek will prioritize more important files to come last in the output. This is useful for LLM consumption since LLMs tend to pay more attention to content that appears later in the context.

Installation

Choose the installation method for your platform:

Unix-like Systems (macOS, Linux)

curl -fsSL https://bodo.run/yek.sh | bash

For Windows (PowerShell):

irm https://bodo.run/yek.ps1 | iex

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/bodo-run/yek
cd yek
cargo install --path .

Usage

yek has sensible defaults, you can simply run yek in a directory to serialize the entire repository. It will serialize all files in the repository and write them into a temporary file. The path to the file will be printed to the console.

Examples

Process current directory and write to temp directory:

yek

Pipe output to clipboard (macOS):

yek src/ | pbcopy

Cap the max output size to 128K tokens:

yek --tokens 128k

Note

yek will remove any files that won't fit in the capped context size. It will try to fit in more important files

yek --max-size 100KB --output-dir /tmp/yek src/

Process multiple directories:

yek src/ tests/

Porcess multiple files

yek file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt

Use glob patterns:

yek "src/**/*.ts"

yek "src/main.rs" "tests/*.rs" "docs/README.md"

Note

When using glob patterns, make sure to quote them to prevent shell expansion.

CLI Reference

yek --help
Usage: yek [OPTIONS] [input-dirs]...

Arguments:
  [input-dirs]...

Options:
      --no-config
      --config-file <CONFIG_FILE>
      --max-size <MAX_SIZE>                       [default: 10MB]
      --tokens <TOKENS>
      --json
      --debug
      --output-dir [<OUTPUT_DIR>]
      --output-template <OUTPUT_TEMPLATE>         [default: ">>>> FILE_PATH\nFILE_CONTENT"]
      --ignore-patterns <IGNORE_PATTERNS>...
      --unignore-patterns <UNIGNORE_PATTERNS>...
  -h, --help                                      Print help

Configuration File

You can place a file called yek.yaml at your project root or pass a custom path via --config. The configuration file allows you to:

1. Add custom ignore patterns
2. Define file priority rules for processing order
3. Add additional binary file extensions to ignore (extends the built-in list)
4. Configure Git-based priority boost
5. Define output directory
6. Define output template

Example yek.yaml

You can also use yek.toml or yek.json instead of yek.yaml.

This is optional, you can configure the yek.yaml file at the root of your project.

# Add patterns to ignore (in addition to .gitignore)
ignore_patterns:
  - "ai-promots/**"
  - "__generated__/**"

# Configure Git-based priority boost (optional)
git_boost_max: 50 # Maximum score boost based on Git history (default: 100)

# Define priority rules for processing order
# Higher scores are processed first
priority_rules:
  - score: 100
    pattern: "^src/lib/"
  - score: 90
    pattern: "^src/"
  - score: 80
    pattern: "^docs/"

# Add additional binary file extensions to ignore
# These extend the built-in list (.jpg, .png, .exe, etc.)
binary_extensions:
  - ".blend" # Blender files
  - ".fbx" # 3D model files
  - ".max" # 3ds Max files
  - ".psd" # Photoshop files

# Define output directory
output_dir: /tmp/yek

# Define output template.
# FILE_PATH and FILE_CONTENT are expected to be present in the template.
output_template: "{{{FILE_PATH}}}\n\nFILE_CONTENT"

All configuration keys are optional. By default:

• No extra ignore patterns, only the ones from .gitignore are used.
• All files have equal priority (score: 1)
• Git-based priority boost maximum is 100
• Common binary file extensions are ignored (.jpg, .png, .exe, etc. - see source for full list)

Performance

yek is fast. It's written in Rust and does many things in parallel to speed up processing.

Here is a benchmark comparing it to Repomix serializing the Next.js project:

time yek
Executed in    5.19 secs    fish           external
   usr time    2.85 secs   54.00 micros    2.85 secs
   sys time    6.31 secs  629.00 micros    6.31 secs

time repomix
Executed in   22.24 mins    fish           external
   usr time   21.99 mins    0.18 millis   21.99 mins
   sys time    0.23 mins    1.72 millis    0.23 mins

yek is 230x faster than repomix.

Roadmap

See proposed features. I am open to accepting new feature requests. Please write a detailed proposal to discuss new features.

Alternatives

• Repomix: A tool to serialize a repository into a single file in a similar way to yek.
• Aider: A full IDE like experience for coding using AI

License

MIT

Footnotes

1. yek is not "blazingly" fast. It's just fast, as fast as your computer can be. ↩