The missing code review tool in the era of AI coding agents.

Table of Contents

• Features
• Getting Started
  • Prerequisites
  • Installation
  • Configuration (for AI features)
• Usage
  • Visual Diff Viewer
  • Generate Commit Messages
  • Generate Git Commands
  • Explain Changes
  • Interactive Mode
  • Tips & Tricks
• AI Providers
• Advanced Configuration
  • Configuration File
  • Configuration Precedence

Features 🔅

• Beautiful & Ergonomic Diff Viewer: Review your code with syntax highlighting & leave comments
• Smart Commit Messages: Generate conventional commit messages for your staged changes
• Interactive Search: Find and explore commits using fuzzy search
• Multiple AI Providers: Supports OpenAI, Claude, Groq, Ollama, and more
• Flexible: Works with any git workflow and supports multiple AI providers
• Rich Output: Markdown support for readable explanations and diffs (requires: mdcat)

Getting Started 🔅

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have:

1. git installed on your system
2. fzf (optional) - Required for lumen explain --list command
3. mdcat (optional) - Required for pretty output formatting

Installation

Using Homebrew (MacOS and Linux)

brew install jnsahaj/lumen/lumen

Using Cargo

[!IMPORTANT] cargo is a package manager for rust, and is installed automatically when you install rust. See installation guide

cargo install lumen

Configuration (for AI features)

If you want to use AI-powered features (explain, draft, list, operate), run the interactive setup:

lumen configure

This will guide you through:

1. Selecting an AI provider
2. Entering your API key (optional if using environment variable)
3. Specifying a custom model name (optional - press Enter to use the default)

The configuration is saved to ~/.config/lumen/lumen.config.json.

[!NOTE] The diff command works without any configuration - it's a standalone visual diff viewer.

Usage 🔅

Generate Commit Messages

Create meaningful commit messages for your staged changes:

# Basic usage - generates a commit message based on staged changes
lumen draft
# Output: "feat(button.tsx): Update button color to blue"

# Add context for more meaningful messages
lumen draft --context "match brand guidelines"
# Output: "feat(button.tsx): Update button color to align with brand identity guidelines"

Generate Git Commands

Ask Lumen to generate Git commands based on a natural language query:

lumen operate "squash the last 3 commits into 1 with the message 'squashed commit'"
# Output: git reset --soft HEAD~3 && git commit -m "squashed commit" [y/N]

The command will display an explanation of what the generated command does, show any warnings for potentially dangerous operations, and prompt for confirmation before execution.

Visual Diff Viewer

Launch an interactive side-by-side diff viewer in your terminal:

# View uncommitted changes
lumen diff

# View changes for a specific commit
lumen diff HEAD~1

# View changes between branches
lumen diff main..feature/A

# View changes in a GitHub Pull Request
lumen diff --pr 123 # (--pr is optional)
lumen diff https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/123

# Filter to specific files
lumen diff --file src/main.rs --file src/lib.rs

# Watch mode - auto-refresh on file changes
lumen diff --watch

# Stacked mode - review commits one by one
lumen diff main..feature --stacked

Stacked Diff Mode

Review a range of commits one at a time with --stacked:

lumen diff main..feature --stacked
lumen diff HEAD~5..HEAD --stacked

This displays each commit individually, letting you navigate through them:

• ctrl+h / ctrl+l: Previous / next commit
• Click the ‹ / › arrows in the header

The header shows the current commit position, SHA, and message. Viewed files are tracked per commit, so your progress is preserved when navigating.

When viewing a PR, you can mark files as viewed (syncs with GitHub) using the space keybinding.

Theme Configuration

Customize the diff viewer colors with preset themes:

# Using CLI flag
lumen diff --theme dracula

# Using environment variable
LUMEN_THEME=catppuccin-mocha lumen diff

# Or set permanently in config file (~/.config/lumen/lumen.config.json)
{
  "theme": "dracula"
}

Available themes:

Priority: CLI flag > config file > LUMEN_THEME env var > OS auto-detect.

Annotations

Add comments to hunks during code review:

• i: Add/edit annotation on focused hunk
• I: View all annotations (edit, delete, copy, or export)

Annotations can be copied to clipboard or exported to a file for sharing.

Keybindings

• j/k or arrow keys: Navigate
• {/}: Jump between hunks
• tab: Toggle sidebar
• space: Mark file as viewed
• e: Open file in editor
• i/I: Add annotation / view all annotations
• ctrl+h/l: Previous/next commit (stacked mode)
• ?: Show all keybindings

Explain Changes

Understand what changed and why:

# Explain current changes in your working directory
lumen explain                         # All changes
lumen explain --staged                # Only staged changes

# Explain specific commits
lumen explain HEAD                    # Latest commit
lumen explain abc123f                 # Specific commit
lumen explain HEAD~3..HEAD            # Last 3 commits
lumen explain main..feature/A         # Branch comparison
lumen explain main...feature/A        # Branch comparison (merge base)

# Ask specific questions about changes
lumen explain --query "What's the performance impact of these changes?"
lumen explain HEAD --query "What are the potential side effects?"

# Interactive commit selection
lumen explain --list                  # Select commit interactively

Interactive Mode

# Launch interactive fuzzy finder to search through commits (requires: fzf)
lumen explain --list

# Deprecated: lumen list (use lumen explain --list instead)

Tips & Tricks

# Copy commit message to clipboard
lumen draft | pbcopy                  # macOS
lumen draft | xclip -selection c      # Linux

# View the commit message and copy it
lumen draft | tee >(pbcopy)

# Open in your favorite editor
lumen draft | code -      

# Directly commit using the generated message
lumen draft | git commit -F -           

If you are using lazygit, you can add this to the user config

customCommands:
  - key: '<c-l>'
    context: 'files'
    command: 'lumen draft | tee >(pbcopy)'
    loadingText: 'Generating message...'
    showOutput: true
  - key: '<c-k>'
    context: 'files'
    command: 'lumen draft -c {{.Form.Context | quote}} | tee >(pbcopy)'
    loadingText: 'Generating message...'
    showOutput: true
    prompts:
          - type: 'input'
            title: 'Context'
            key: 'Context'

AI Providers 🔅

Configure your preferred AI provider:

# Using CLI arguments
lumen -p openai -k "your-api-key" -m "gpt-5-mini" draft

# Using environment variables
export LUMEN_AI_PROVIDER="openai"
export LUMEN_API_KEY="your-api-key"
export LUMEN_AI_MODEL="gpt-5-mini"

Supported Providers

Advanced Configuration 🔅

Configuration File

Lumen supports configuration through a JSON file. You can place the configuration file in one of the following locations:

1. Project Root: Create a lumen.config.json file in your project's root directory.
2. Custom Path: Specify a custom path using the --config CLI option.
3. Global Configuration (Optional): Place a lumen.config.json file in your system's default configuration directory:
   • Linux/macOS: ~/.config/lumen/lumen.config.json
   • Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.config\lumen\lumen.config.json

Lumen will load configurations in the following order of priority:

1. CLI arguments (highest priority)
2. Configuration file specified by --config
3. Project root lumen.config.json
4. Global configuration file (lowest priority)

{
  "provider": "openai",
  "model": "gpt-5-mini",
  "api_key": "sk-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
  "theme": "catppuccin-mocha",
  "draft": {
    "commit_types": {
      "docs": "Documentation only changes",
      "style": "Changes that do not affect the meaning of the code",
      "refactor": "A code change that neither fixes a bug nor adds a feature",
      "perf": "A code change that improves performance",
      "test": "Adding missing tests or correcting existing tests",
      "build": "Changes that affect the build system or external dependencies",
      "ci": "Changes to our CI configuration files and scripts",
      "chore": "Other changes that don't modify src or test files",
      "revert": "Reverts a previous commit",
      "feat": "A new feature",
      "fix": "A bug fix"
    }
  }
}

Configuration Precedence

Options are applied in the following order (highest to lowest priority):

1. CLI Flags
2. Configuration File
3. Environment Variables
4. Default options

Example: Using different providers for different projects:

# Set global defaults in .zshrc/.bashrc
export LUMEN_AI_PROVIDER="openai"
export LUMEN_AI_MODEL="gpt-5-mini"
export LUMEN_API_KEY="sk-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"

# Override per project using config file
{
  "provider": "ollama",
  "model": "llama3.2"
}

# Or override using CLI flags
lumen -p "ollama" -m "llama3.2" draft

Contributors

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Interested in Contributing?

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

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