gitlad.nvim

A performance-focused, magit-inspired git interface for Neovim.

Interactive demo

Installation

Using lazy.nvim:

{
  "actionshrimp/gitlad.nvim",
  dependencies = {
    {
      -- Fork with 3-way staging support (magit/ediff style).
      -- The original sindrets/diffview.nvim also works if you prefer.
      "actionshrimp/diffview.nvim",
      branch = "3-way-staging",
    },
  },
  config = function()
    require("gitlad").setup()
  end,
}

Then open any git repo and run :Gitlad.

Features

• Status view with unstaged, staged, untracked, and conflicted sections
• Inline diff expansion - TAB on a file shows the diff inline
• Hunk-level staging - Stage/unstage individual hunks or visual selections
• Transient-style popups for commit, push, pull, fetch, branch, log, diff, stash, rebase, merge, cherry-pick, revert, reset, and submodule
• Interactive rebase editor with pick/reword/edit/squash/fixup/drop
• Upstream tracking - Unpushed/unpulled commits, ahead/behind counts
• Git command history - $ shows every git command run with output and exit codes
• diffview.nvim integration - Full-buffer diffs and 3-way merge conflict resolution

Performance

gitlad uses optimistic state updates to keep the UI fast regardless of repo size:

1. Instant updates - Stage a file → run git add → check exit code → update UI state directly in Lua (no git status round-trip)
2. Manual refresh - Press gr when you want to resync with git

File watcher (optional)

An optional file watcher detects external changes (terminal commands, other editors, git push) and either shows a stale indicator or auto-refreshes the status buffer. Both the watcher and auto-refresh are configurable — see configuration.

The watcher uses libuv's fs_event under the hood. On macOS and Windows this provides recursive directory watching with no polling overhead. On Linux, fs_event is non-recursive, so the watcher covers .git/ subdirectories and the repo root, with Neovim autocmds (BufWritePost, FocusGained) as a fallback for changes in nested working tree files.

Keybindings

Follows evil-collection-magit conventions. If you're familiar with magit, you'll feel right at home.

All keybindings are discoverable from within the plugin — press ? in any gitlad buffer to open the help popup showing every available key.

Configuration

The defaults work out of the box. Pass only what you want to change.

For all available options and their defaults, see lua/gitlad/config.lua.

require("gitlad").setup({
  -- Example: enable auto-refresh when external tools change git state
  watcher = {
    auto_refresh = true,
    auto_refresh_debounce_ms = 1000,
  },

  -- Example: customise which sections appear in the status buffer
  status = {
    sections = {
      "untracked",
      "unstaged",
      "staged",
      "conflicted",
      "rebase_sequence",
      "stashes",
      "submodules",
      { "worktrees", min_count = 2 },
      "unpushed",
      "unpulled",
      { "recent", count = 10 },
    },
  },
})

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup, running tests, and code style.

License

MIT