Introduction

What gitview is, what it deliberately is not, and when to reach for it.

gitview is a read-only web view of git repositories whose UI matches github.com at the pixel level for the surfaces it builds: repository home with the file table and rendered README, tree and blob pages with syntax highlighting and line anchors, commit lists, commit diffs, branches, tags, blame with an age heat bar, archive downloads, and the t file finder. Light and dark themes follow your system, and the keyboard shortcuts you already use on github.com work here.

When it is the right tool

Reading a repo that only exists on your disk. A checkout, a bare repo, a mirror, a ~/src full of clones. gitview ~/src serves the whole folder with an index page.
Reading a GitHub repo without leaving your terminal-and-localhost workflow, or when you want one tool for local and remote browsing. The GitHub backend speaks the REST API, so nothing is cloned.
Reading the files of a Hugging Face model, dataset, or Space the way you read code, instead of through the Hub's file viewer.
Sharing a read-only view on a LAN. One flag binds a non-loopback address; gitview prints a clear warning about what that exposes.

What it will never do

There are no issues, pull requests, wikis, actions, accounts, stars, or notifications, and there is no editing. gitview never writes to your repository: the local backend invokes git with read subcommands only, and there is no flag that enables anything else. This is not a roadmap gap, it is the product: a viewer you can point at anything without thinking about what it might touch.

How it is built

One static Go binary. Local repositories are read by shelling out to the git CLI you already have; GitHub repositories through the REST API; Hugging Face repositories through the Hub API. Pages render server-side with a hand-written reimplementation of GitHub's Primer look, real Octicons, and a sprinkle of vanilla JavaScript. Everything is embedded in the binary, so there is nothing to install next to it and the pages work with JavaScript disabled.

Ready? Install it and take the quick start tour.