Running the Git GUI locally

[bniladridas]

git-gui is a Tkinter desktop GUI for common Git operations. Here is how to get it running.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.13 or newer
• A Python build that includes Tk. On Linux this is a separate package, usually python3-tk
• On macOS and Windows, the standard python.org installers include Tk

With make

git clone https://github.com/coccinella-labs/.github
cd .github

make run     # create .venv, install the package, launch the GUI
make start   # install then run
make clean   # remove .venv

The run target depends on .venv, so the first invocation creates the virtual environment and installs the package in editable mode.

Without make

python -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/pip install -e .
.venv/bin/python main.py

Console script

Installing the package also exposes a git-gui entry point:

git-gui

Optional extras

pip install -e .[test]      # pytest, pytest-asyncio, pytest-cov, bandit, ruff
pip install -e .[postgres]  # psycopg2-binary, for command history logging

Warning

This package is not published to PyPI. pip install git-gui and
pip install git-tui both fail, because neither name resolves. Install from
a clone of this repository.

Tip

Run python check_all.py before committing. It runs ruff lint, ruff format
checking, bandit and the test suite, which is the same set CI runs.

Optional PostgreSQL logging

If psycopg2 is installed and a database is reachable, every Git command is recorded into a command_history table. Configure it with POSTGRES_DB, POSTGRES_USER, POSTGRES_PASSWORD and POSTGRES_HOST. If the import or the connection fails, the GUI still runs and simply does not log.

Containerized

docker build .
docker-compose up

Note

This thread previously announced a pip install git-tui release for a
project under the harpertoken organization, which no longer exists. The
package name is git-gui, it has never been published to PyPI, and the
links in the original post no longer resolve.

[ghost]

Status at the time this thread was opened.

[bniladridas]

Update. This milestone reference pointed at the harpertoken organization, which no longer exists, so the link does not resolve. There is no longer a "Release v0.1.0" milestone here.

Current releases in this repository:

Version	Date
v0.1.0	2025-09-26
v0.1.1	2026-02-13
v0.1.2	2026-03-24

v0.1.2 is the current release of the git-gui package.

[bniladridas]

Correction to the announcement above: pip install git-tui does not work, and never did. git-tui is not a PyPI project.

The package name is git-gui, and it is not published to PyPI at all. Install it from a clone:

git clone https://github.com/coccinella-labs/.github
cd .github
make run

Or without make:

python -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/pip install -e .
.venv/bin/python main.py

Installing also exposes a git-gui console script. Full details in the running the Git GUI locally thread.