GitButler is a git client that lets you work on multiple branches at the same time.
It allows you to quickly organize file changes into separate branches while still having them applied to your working directory.
You can then push branches individually to your remote, or directly create pull requests.
In a nutshell, it's a more flexible version of `git add -p` and `git rebase -i`, allowing you to efficiently multitask across branches.
## How does it work?
GitButler keeps track of uncommitted changes in a layer on top of Git. Changes to files or parts of files can be grouped into what we call virtual branches. Whenever you are happy with the contents of a virtual branch, you can push it to a remote. GitButler makes sure that the state of other virtual branches is kept separate.
## How do GB's virtual branches differ from Git branches?
The branches that we know and love in Git are separate universes, and switching between them is a full context switch. GitButler allows you to work with multiple branches in parallel in the same working directory. This effectively means having the content of multiple branches available at the same time.
GitButler is aware of changes before they are committed. This allows it to keep a record of which virtual branch each individual diff belongs to. Effectively, this means that you can separate out individual branches with their content at any time to push them to a remote or to unapply them from your working directory.
And finally, while in Git it is preferable that you create your desired branch ahead of time, using GitButler you can move changes between virtual branches at any point during development.
We love Git. Our own [@schacon](https://github.com/schacon) has even published the [Pro Git](https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2) book. At the same time, Git's user interface hasn't been fundamentally changed for 15 years. While it was written for Linux kernel devs sending patches to each other over mailing lists, most developers today have different workflows and needs.
Instead of trying to fit the semantics of the Git CLI into a graphical interface, we are starting with the developer workflow and mapping it back to Git.
GitButler is a [Tauri](https://tauri.app/)-based application. Its UI is written in [Svelte](https://svelte.dev/) using [TypeScript](https://www.typescriptlang.org) and its backend is written in [Rust](https://www.rust-lang.org/).
> Say that while developing a feature, you encounter a bug that you wish to fix. It's often desirable that you ship the fix as a separate contribution (Pull request).
Using Git you can stash your changes and switch to another branch, where you can commit, and push your fix.
*With GitButler* you simply assign your fix to a separate virtual branch, which you can individually push (or directly create a PR). An additional benefit is that you can retain the fix in your working directory while waiting for CI and/or code review.
### Trying someone else's branch together with my work in progress
> Say you want to test a branch from someone else for the purpose of code review.
Using Git trying out someone else's branch is a full context switch away from your own work.
Our goal is to make this feature more modular such that in the future you can modify the prompt as well as plug a different LLM endpoints (including a local ones).
