Reef is a minimal terminal for navigating and managing code in the AI coding era.

Reef

AI 时代的最小开发者终端 The minimal dev terminal for the AI coding era

Once AI writes your code, 90% of an IDE becomes dead weight. Reef is the other 10%.

Why

When AI writes most of your code, an IDE's surface shrinks to four things: browsing files, reading files, searching, and walking git diffs before a commit. Reef is a terminal workbench for exactly that — and nothing else.

No autocomplete. No linter. No language server. Not even a text editor. Write with your AI tool of choice; come here to read and ship.

What's in the box

Files tab — tree navigator with a read-only preview pane
Search tab — workdir-wide content search (ripgrep-powered, honours .gitignore) with live preview on the right; modal list / input modes, whole-row horizontal scroll, 1000-hit cap
Git tab — status, stage / unstage (keyboard or double-click), unified or side-by-side diff, compact or full-file context, discard with confirmation, push / force-push (--force-with-lease) with confirm banner
Graph tab — commit DAG with ref chips, selectable rows, inline commit detail and per-file diff
Palettes — <kbd>Space</kbd> <kbd>P</kbd> quick-open a file by fuzzy path, <kbd>Space</kbd> <kbd>F</kbd> global content search (same backend as the Search tab; <kbd>Alt</kbd>+<kbd>Enter</kbd> pins the query into the tab)
Keyboard first, mouse where it earns its keep — drag to resize the split, double-click to toggle staging, scroll the panel under the cursor
Persistent prefs — diff layout and mode survive restarts

Install

Via npm (recommended):

# Run without installing
npx @reef-tui/cli

# Or install globally
npm install -g @reef-tui/cli
reef

The correct native binary for your platform is selected automatically. Supported: macOS (arm64, x64), Linux (arm64, x64), Windows (x64).

Build from source:

cargo build --release

# Run from inside any git repo:
cd your-git-repo
/path/to/reef/target/release/reef

Reef works anywhere, but the Git and Graph tabs only light up inside a git repo. Outside one, they show a "Not a git repository" placeholder and the Files tab still browses the current directory.

Keybindings

Global

Key	Action
`q`, `Ctrl+C`	quit
`1` / `2` / `3` / `4`	Files / Search / Git / Graph tab
`Tab`	cycle tabs
`Shift+Tab`	switch focused panel
`h`	help
`Space p`	quick-open file (fuzzy path)
`Space f`	global content search overlay
`v`	toggle mouse capture (for terminal text selection)

Files tab

Key	Action
`↑`/`↓`, `j`/`k`	navigate
`PgUp` / `PgDn`	page
`Enter`	expand/collapse directory, or open file in `$EDITOR`
`e`	open selected file in `$EDITOR` (no-op on dirs)
`r`	rebuild tree

Search tab

Left panel is modal. List mode is the default: global shortcuts (h, q, digit keys, …) stay live; press / or i to focus the input, Esc to return. Typing updates results live.

Key	Action
`↑`/`↓`, `j`/`k`, `Ctrl+N`/`Ctrl+P`	navigate results
`/` or `i`	focus the search input
`Esc`	return to list mode
`Enter`, double-click	reveal match in Files tab (matched line highlighted)
`r`	reload current query
`←`/`→`, `Shift+←`/`Shift+→`	horizontal scroll (whole row)
`Home` / `End`	reset / jump h-scroll

Git tab

Key	Action
`s` / `u`	stage / unstage
`d` → `y`	discard unstaged file (confirm)
`Enter` / `e`	open selected file in `$EDITOR`
`r`	refresh
`t`	tree / flat view
`m`	unified ↔ side-by-side
`f`	compact ↔ full-file diff

Graph tab

Key	Action
`↑`/`↓`, `j`/`k`	move commit selection
`m` / `f`	commit-file diff layout / mode
`t`	tree / flat changed-files

Status

Alpha. Single-process Rust binary — no plugins, no IPC. Files, Git, and Graph are all host-native.