freezy — terminal Git review, in Rust

A read-only terminal diff viewer for one repository or a directory of sibling repositories. The UI uses a LazyGit-inspired visual theme: fixed black backgrounds, rounded frames, green focused borders, blue selections and hints, and red/green change highlights. Freezy retains its own compact Source Control pane, overview ruler, and review stream. The top workspace bar switches between Files, Commits, Branch, and Stash; Files contains the current review UI, while the other three workspaces are intentionally empty until their Git views are implemented.

Split and stacked diffs include syntax coloring, full-row change backgrounds, inline emphasis, current-line highlighting, Unicode-safe wrapping, and optional line numbers and hunk metadata. File search and help use keyboard-accessible modals. Every changed file remains available in the sidebar.

Syntax highlighting uses the bundled two-face grammar collection, curated by bat: JavaScript/JSX, TypeScript/TSX (including .mjs, .cjs, .mts, and .cts), Python, Rust, Go, Java, C/C++, C#, Ruby, PHP, Swift, Kotlin, Dart, Vue, Svelte, HTML/CSS, SQL, shell, and many more. It recognizes filenames such as Dockerfile, Makefile, and .env.local, compound extensions, and shebangs when the first source line is available. Unsupported formats remain readable as plain text. No runtime grammar downloads or language servers are needed.

Run

cargo build --release
./target/release/freezy [dir]         # a repo or parent of sibling repos
./target/release/freezy --scan [dir]  # headless changed-file listing

Keys

Key	Action
1 / 2 / 3 / 4 · click workspace	open Files / Commits / Branch / Stash
j / k · ↓ / ↑	next / previous file in the active sidebar, or code line in the active viewer
g / G · Home / End	start / end of diff
] / [	next / previous hunk
z / click Show/Hide gap row	expand / collapse unchanged context near the selected hunk
+ / - · window [-][+] buttons	maximize / restore one window level
click a pane · F6	choose the window to maximize
Ctrl-h / Ctrl-j / Ctrl-k / Ctrl-l	focus window left / down / up / right
< / > / 0	stack / split / auto
v	toggle split / stack
s	show / hide sidebar
Shift-L / w / m	toggle line numbers (active viewer) / wrap / hunk metadata
/ / o / Tab	open the fuzzy file picker
↑ / ↓ · Enter · Esc in picker	select · open · cancel and clear filter
PgDown / Space / f · PgUp / b	page down / up
d / u (also Ctrl-d / Ctrl-u)	half-page down / up
h / l · ← / →	scroll the active viewer horizontally (disables wrap)
Shift+wheel	scroll code horizontally (disables wrap)
r	reload files and current diff
? · Esc	open / close help (arrows or wheel scroll)
click / wheel	select workspaces, files or code · use ruler · scroll
q / Ctrl-C	quit

Plain h/j/k/l acts only in the focused window and never switches focus. The sidebar uses j/k to select files and update their diff preview; h/l does nothing there. In search these letters remain text input, and help handles its own scrolling. Ctrl-h/j/k/l still switches window focus. Shift-L replaces the former l line-number toggle. File selection, code navigation, and hunk navigation stop at the first/last item; they never wrap around. Scrolling at the sidebar's edge does not reload the file or reset its diff position.

The former File/View/Navigate menu bar has been removed. ? opens the keyboard controls. The styling is inspired by LazyGit's defaults: Freezy's components, shortcuts, and workflows are unchanged. Chrome and syntax use a fixed dark palette so your terminal theme cannot replace the black background or recolor highlights. Modified files are yellow, additions green, and deletions red. Code additions/deletions retain subtle red/green backgrounds and stronger inline emphasis. Empty diff padding stays black.

Shared UI component

ui::primitives::window::Window in src/ui/primitives/window.rs is the common shell for the sidebar, diff viewer, workspace tabs, empty workspaces, overview ruler, and dialogs. It owns the base background, border styling, padding, and optional overlay clearing. Views use composition: render a Window, then draw their content in the returned rectangle.

let body = Window::default()
    .borders(Borders::ALL)
    .padding(Padding::vertical(1))
    .overlay() // Use only for floating windows over existing content.
    .render(frame, area);
frame.render_widget(Paragraph::new("Window content"), body);

Change shared frame defaults in Window::default() and palette colors in src/utils/theme.rs. Content-specific styles such as diff highlights remain in their views.

Level-wise maximize

Freezy currently has two zoomable windows: the sidebar and the whole file viewer. The old/new diff columns are content inside the viewer, not separate windows. Click either column (or use Ctrl-h/l or F6), then press + or click the viewer's [+] to hide the sidebar and expand the entire diff. Another + does nothing: it never hides either diff column. Maximizing the sidebar instead hides the whole viewer in one step. - or [-] restores the previous layout and widths. Moving the mouse or scrolling does not switch window focus.

Hidden windows retain their data, and zoom does not change the saved sidebar or split/stack options; Auto keeps its usual width-responsive layout. Changing the diff layout (<, >, 0, v) preserves maximization and hidden windows; - still restores the previous window size. Toggling the sidebar (s) or switching workspaces starts a fresh zoom sequence. Search and help overlays keep their existing input behavior; typing digits in search does not switch workspaces.

Future actual windows can use a stable WindowId and register their rectangle through Window::controls. Give related windows the same group ID, and exclude hidden IDs from their layout. Ctrl-h/j/k/l uses those window rectangles to focus the nearest visible window in that direction, without wrapping or reopening hidden windows. Diff columns are not focus targets; with today's side-by-side windows, Ctrl-j/k does nothing because no window is above or below. The shared WindowZoom controller is independent of the current window count: it hides the nearest outside window before a peer in the same group, restoring each step in reverse order. Internal content such as diff columns does not need a window ID.

Performance and checks

Git runs in-process through libgit2 on background threads. Syntax highlighting also runs off the UI thread, using Syntect with shared-palette token colors. Paired rows and wrapped terminal cells are cached; resizing or changing view settings rebuilds the display cache. Stale file/diff results are discarded.

Unchanged context is retained from a full-context Git diff on the background worker and folded by default. Each gap expands independently in split and stack views, without changing the original hunk ranges. m only toggles metadata; z toggles the context itself. Reloading or switching files resets expansion.

cargo test
cargo clippy -- -D warnings

Tests cover split/stack rendering, exact shell geometry and palette, file groups and hit targets, wrapping, Unicode, hunk navigation, workspace switching, filtering, empty/loading states, stale results, tiny terminal sizes, and level-wise window zoom.