GitWand

A fast, native Git client with built-in smart conflict resolution

Desktop • Conflict engine • CLI • MCP Server • Architecture • Roadmap • Code signing

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GitWand is a lightweight, native Git client built with Tauri 2 and Vue 3. It covers the full daily workflow — changes, history, branches, push/pull — and goes further with automatic resolution of trivial merge conflicts, integrated PR code review with inline comments, and a Git Tree as the primary history view. Since v1.3, AI assists every step of the workflow — branch naming, PR writing, hunk-level review, semantic squash, and natural-language commit search. v2.7+ adds multi-repo Workspaces and Worktrees; v2.8 adds Agent Sessions (MCP); v2.9 adds a cross-repo Launchpad; v2.10 brings multi-forge pull requests across GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket and Azure DevOps; v2.13 adds inline AI code review; v2.18 overlays CI check annotations directly on the diff; and v2.19 adds OAuth device-flow sign-in for GitHub and Azure DevOps (no gh CLI required) plus cross-fork pull requests.

Desktop app

Git Tree

The Git Tree is the primary history view — a full-resolution DAG that renders the branch topology as an SVG with trunk-pinning, lane cooldowns, WIP node, and ref badges. Click any commit to see its diff; right-click to checkout, reset, branch, tag, or cherry-pick. Branches, stashes, and tags are all managed from here without a separate panel.

Repository view

Staged, unstaged, untracked, and conflicted files in a sidebar with inline diffs in the main area. Stage, unstage, discard, and commit without leaving the interface. Partial staging at the line or hunk level.

Commit workflow

Summary + description fields, optional commit signature, Ctrl+Enter shortcut. Unpushed commits can be amended directly from the Git Tree — a pencil icon appears on hover, opening an overlay pre-filled with the existing message.

Branches

Click the branch name in the header to search, switch, create, or delete branches. Merge any branch from the dedicated merge button. Each non-current branch shows a merge preview button that simulates the merge result before committing.

Merge preview

Before merging a branch, GitWand predicts the outcome without touching the working tree — using git merge-base, git show, and git merge-file -p --diff3. The result shows a per-file breakdown:

• Auto-resolvable — GitWand can handle it automatically
• Partial — some hunks need manual resolution
• Manual — complex conflicts requiring human judgment
• Add/delete — file added on one side, deleted on the other

A badge summarises the overall result: Clean merge, 100% auto-resolvable, or N conflicts to review.

Push & Pull

One-click push and pull with badge counters showing ahead/behind commits. Auto-fetch runs in the background every 30 seconds.

Diff viewer

Side-by-side or inline toggle, persisted across sessions. Syntax highlighting for 30+ languages, word-level diff using LCS, collapsible unchanged regions, canvas minimap, hunk navigation (prev/next), double-column line numbers.

File history & blame

Full file history with git log --follow, blame view grouped by commit, time-travel diff between any two versions of a file.

Repo switcher & Workspaces

The current repo name in the header opens a dropdown showing recently opened repositories. Pin favourites, switch instantly — no file picker needed. Workspaces (v2.7) group multiple repos into a single dashboard with cross-repo status, coordinated push/pull, and quick-create worktrees (⌘⇧N).

Launchpad

Launchpad (⌘L, v2.9) is a cross-repo dashboard with four tabs — WIP, PRs, Issues, Team — for a bird's-eye view of everything in flight. Pin or snooze any item; the Team tab loads lazily for performance on large workspaces.

Pull Requests & Code Review

Browse, create, checkout, and merge pull/merge requests across GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket and Azure DevOps without leaving the app. GitWand auto-detects the forge from the remote and routes to the right provider; accounts are managed once in Settings. The PR list sits in the sidebar and the full detail — diff, CI checks, comments, inline review — fills the main area.

• Sign in with OAuth — "Sign in with GitHub" and "Sign in with Azure DevOps" use the OAuth device flow; tokens are stored in the OS keychain and the GitHub PR workflow runs tokenless over the REST API, with no gh CLI required (the CLI path still works when no token is configured)
• Cross-fork pull requests — when origin is a fork, open a PR straight against the upstream parent (default), and see the PRs you opened upstream listed alongside your fork's own
• Inline comments — read and write review comments anchored to diff lines, with full threading and code suggestions (```suggestion ``` blocks applicable in one click)
• Inline CI check annotations — failed-check annotations overlay the diff with gutter icons (❌/⚠/ℹ) and hover tooltips, with a per-file count in the sidebar (GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket)
• Review submission — Approve / Request changes / Comment, with a draft queue to accumulate comments before sending
• 🧠 Intelligence panel — conflict prediction (git merge-tree before merging), hotspot analysis, review scope, static AI suggestions, file review history

Agent Sessions

The Agents panel (v2.8) shows active MCP sessions and lets you launch Claude Code directly from GitWand — the agent's changes appear live in the diff viewer. The MCP catalog (Settings > MCP) lets you install any MCP server in one click.

Settings

Language (English, French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese — OS auto-detected), theme (dark/light/system), commit signature, diff mode, external editor, Git binary path, and switch behavior (stash/ask/refuse). AI providers cover API backends (Claude / OpenAI-compatible / Ollama) and local CLI agents (Claude Code, Codex, opencode, GitHub Copilot CLI), each with its own model picker. Accounts manages forge sign-in — OAuth device flow for GitHub and Azure DevOps, App Passwords / CLI for the others. All persisted in app settings.

Installing

Download the latest build for your platform from GitHub Releases:

• macOS — .dmg (Universal: Apple Silicon + Intel, Developer ID signed + Apple-notarized)
• Linux — .AppImage or .deb
• Windows — .msi or .exe

Running from source

git clone https://github.com/devlint/GitWand.git
cd GitWand
pnpm install

# Browser dev mode — no Rust needed
cd apps/desktop && pnpm dev:web

# Tauri desktop mode — requires Rust toolchain
# Install Rust: curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
source "$HOME/.cargo/env"

# Desktop Dev Build (In the apps/desktop/ folder)
pnpm --filter desktop tauri dev

# On linux you may have to run
WEBKIT_DISABLE_COMPOSITING_MODE=1 pnpm --filter desktop tauri dev

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Conflict resolution engine

GitWand's core engine (@gitwand/core) automatically resolves trivial Git merge conflicts. It never touches complex or ambiguous hunks.

Resolution patterns

GitWand uses a pattern registry — the classifier evaluates patterns in priority order, each declaring whether it requires diff3 (base available), diff2, or works on both.

Pattern	Description	Confidence
same_change	Both branches made the exact same edit	Certain
one_side_change	Only one branch modified the block	Certain
delete_no_change	One branch deleted, the other didn't touch it	Certain
non_overlapping	Additions at different locations in the block	High
whitespace_only	Same logic, different indentation/spacing	High
reorder_only	Same lines, different order — pure permutation	High
insertion_at_boundary	Pure insertions on both sides, base intact	High
value_only_change	Scalar value update (version number, constant)	Medium
generated_file	File matches a known generated-file path pattern	High
complex	Overlapping edits — never auto-resolved	—

Composite confidence score

Every resolution carries a ConfidenceScore object rather than a simple label:

{
  score: 84,           // 0–100 composite score
  label: "high",       // "certain" | "high" | "medium" | "low"
  dimensions: {
    typeClassification: 90,  // certainty of the detected pattern
    dataRisk: 20,            // risk of data loss if auto-resolved
    scopeImpact: 10,         // impact of change size
  },
  boosters: ["Path matches generated-file pattern: lockfile"],
  penalties: ["Content will be regenerated — theirs assumed more recent"],
}

Score formula: score = typeClassification − dataRisk×0.4 − scopeImpact×0.15

Format-aware resolvers

For structured files, GitWand uses semantic resolvers before falling back to text matching:

• JSON / JSONC — recursive key-by-key merge using JSON.parse/JSON.stringify. Handles nested objects, detects unresolvable scalar conflicts, strips comments in .jsonc.
• Markdown — section-aware merge by ATX heading (H1–H6). Merges independent sections, falls back to text if the same section is modified on both sides.

Configurable merge policies

Create a .gitwandrc file at the project root to define resolution strategies:

{
  "policy": "prefer-merge",
  "patternOverrides": {
    "*.lock": "prefer-theirs",
    "src/generated/**": "prefer-theirs",
    "CHANGELOG.md": "prefer-ours"
  }
}

Available policies: prefer-ours, prefer-theirs, prefer-safety, prefer-merge, strict.

Decision trace

Every classification step is logged in a DecisionTrace for auditing and debugging:

✓ src/config.ts — 3/3 resolved
  L12 [one_side_change] certain — Only the incoming branch modified this block.
  L25 [same_change] certain — Both branches made the exact same edit.
  L41 [value_only_change:json] high — Scalar value updated on one side (version field).

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CLI

# Use directly with npx
npx @gitwand/cli resolve

# Or install globally
npm install -g @gitwand/cli

gitwand resolve              # Resolve all conflicted files in the repo
gitwand resolve --dry-run    # Preview without writing
gitwand resolve --verbose    # Detailed decision trace
gitwand status               # Show conflict status per file
gitwand resolve --ci         # CI mode: JSON output + semantic exit codes

Enriched JSON output

The --ci / --json flag returns a full structured report with composite confidence scores, decision traces, and pending hunks for LLM-assisted resolution:

{
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "timestamp": "2026-04-14T12:00:00.000Z",
  "summary": {
    "files": 2,
    "totalConflicts": 5,
    "autoResolved": 4,
    "remaining": 1,
    "allResolved": false
  },
  "files": [
    {
      "path": "src/config.ts",
      "totalConflicts": 3,
      "autoResolved": 3,
      "remaining": 0,
      "validation": {
        "isValid": true,
        "hasResidualMarkers": false,
        "syntaxError": null
      },
      "resolutions": [
        {
          "line": 15,
          "type": "one_side_change",
          "resolved": true,
          "explanation": "Only one side modified this block",
          "confidence": {
            "score": 95,
            "label": "certain",
            "typeClassification": 100,
            "dataRisk": 5,
            "scopeImpact": 10
          },
          "trace": {
            "selected": "theirs",
            "hasBase": true,
            "summary": "One-side change detected — incoming accepted.",
            "steps": ["..."]
          }
        }
      ],
      "pendingHunks": []
    }
  ]
}

The pendingHunks array gives AI agents and CI scripts everything they need to handle the conflicts that GitWand can't auto-resolve — the ours/theirs/base content, the classification trace, and the confidence breakdown.

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MCP Server

GitWand ships an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that exposes its conflict resolution engine to AI agents — Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, and any MCP-compatible client.

Setup

Add this to your MCP client configuration (e.g. claude_desktop_config.json or .claude/settings.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gitwand": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@gitwand/mcp"]
    }
  }
}

The server defaults to the working directory of the client. To pin it to a specific repo, add "--cwd", "/absolute/path/to/repo" to the args array. With Claude Code, install in one line:

claude mcp add gitwand -- npx -y @gitwand/mcp

Tools

Tool	Description
gitwand_status	List conflicted files with their complexity and auto-resolvability
gitwand_resolve_conflicts	Auto-resolve trivial conflicts, return DecisionTrace + pendingHunks
gitwand_preview_merge	Dry-run resolution — stats and risk assessment without writing files
gitwand_explain_hunk	Explain why a specific hunk was classified its type (full trace + context)
gitwand_apply_resolution	Apply a custom (LLM-provided) resolution to a specific complex hunk
gitwand_resolve_hunk	Ask the connected agent to propose a resolution for one pending hunk (ours/theirs/base + trace returned)
gitwand_resolve_hunk_llm	Validate an LLM-proposed resolution through the post-merge gate, then apply it to disk

Resources

URI	Description
gitwand://repo/conflicts	Current conflict state — files, counts, types
gitwand://repo/policy	Active .gitwandrc configuration
gitwand://hunk/{file}/{line}	Raw hunk content for a specific conflict

The human ↔ LLM collaboration loop

The MCP server enables a powerful workflow where GitWand handles the trivial conflicts automatically and the LLM tackles the complex ones:

1. LLM calls gitwand_preview_merge — sees how many conflicts exist and how many GitWand can handle
2. LLM calls gitwand_resolve_conflicts — GitWand auto-resolves the easy ones, returns pendingHunks for the rest
3. LLM reads the pendingHunks — each one contains ours/theirs/base content and a full decision trace
4. LLM calls gitwand_apply_resolution for each pending hunk — writes its resolution directly

Claude Code slash commands

GitWand also ships .claude/commands/ for Claude Code:

/resolve   # Full conflict resolution workflow
/preview   # Merge preview and risk assessment

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Architecture

gitwand/
├── packages/
│   ├── core/       @gitwand/core — Resolution engine (TypeScript, browser-safe)
│   │               parser, resolver, classifier, format resolvers,
│   │               confidence scoring, tree-sitter structural dispatch
│   ├── cli/        @gitwand/cli — Command-line interface
│   ├── mcp/        @gitwand/mcp — MCP server (stdio transport)
│   │               tools (7), resources (3), Claude Code commands
│   └── vscode/     VS Code extension — CodeLens, diagnostics, status bar
├── apps/
│   └── desktop/    Tauri 2 + Vue 3 desktop app
│                   src-tauri/  Rust backend (git commands, IPC, libgit2)
│                   src/        Vue frontend (stores, composables, panels)
└── .claude/
    └── commands/   Claude Code slash commands (/resolve, /preview)

The core engine is framework-agnostic and usable as a library:

import { resolve } from "@gitwand/core";

const result = resolve(conflictedContent, "src/app.ts");
console.log(`${result.stats.autoResolved}/${result.stats.totalConflicts} resolved`);

// With options
const result = resolve(content, "package.json", {
  policy: "prefer-merge",
  minConfidence: "medium",
  patternOverrides: { "*.lock": "prefer-theirs" },
});

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Development

git clone https://github.com/devlint/GitWand.git
cd GitWand
pnpm install
pnpm build          # Build all packages
pnpm test           # Tests across all workspaces

Running benchmarks

cd packages/core
pnpm test:bench     # vitest bench — ops/s per fixture size

Baseline results on Apple M-series:

Input	Throughput
1 conflict / ~30 lines	~249 000 ops/s
5 conflicts / ~140 lines	~40 000 ops/s
50 conflicts / ~1350 lines	~4 500 ops/s
JSON/Markdown format-aware	~137 000 ops/s

Internationalization

GitWand uses a zero-dependency type-safe i18n system across five languages — English (en, default), French (fr), Spanish (es), Brazilian Portuguese (pt-BR), and Simplified Chinese (zh-CN). en.ts is the canonical reference, defined with as const; the Locale and LocaleKey types are derived from it, so every other locale must match its structure — TypeScript enforces it. The useI18n() composable provides t(key, ...args) with dotted key resolution and positional interpolation. OS language is auto-detected; users can override in Settings.

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Roadmap

See ROADMAP.md for the full phased plan — upcoming features, competitive analysis, and shipped version history.

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Code signing policy

Windows builds of GitWand are code-signed. Free code signing provided by SignPath.io, certificate by SignPath Foundation.

Role	Member
Committers / Reviewers	Laurent Guitton
Approvers	Laurent Guitton

This program will not transfer any information to other networked systems unless specifically requested by the user.

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License

MIT — Laurent Guitton