A lightweight, dependency-free Node.js tool for reviewing changes across multiple commits in a Git repository. Nice for reviewing all changes made for a specific ticket.

CAUTION: This is vibe-coded in about 3h with Anthropics' Claude. Vibe-coded in the sense of not code-inspected at all, just manually tested and used. Use at your own risk. Still, I found it very useful. I didn't check the code because I didn't need to - it just worked as intended.

Git Change Review Helper provides a simple web-based interface to:

• Filter commits by regex patterns (e.g., ticket numbers like JIRA-1234)
• View all files changed across selected commits
• See consolidated diffs showing only your ticket's changes
• Navigate through changes without the noise of unrelated commits

Built with zero npm dependencies - just Node.js built-in modules and Bootstrap from CDN.

Clone the repository and create a symlink to the gitreviewtool script in your PATH. The script follows symlinks to find the actual code, so you can install it anywhere and run it from any Git repository. You need node.js in the path.

If you created a symlink (recommended):

cd /path/to/your/git/repo
gitreviewtool

Without symlink:

cd /path/to/your/git/repo
/path/to/gitreviewtool/gitreviewtool

The server will start on http://localhost:3032 (or another port if 3032 is busy).

1. Filter Commits

   • Enter a regex pattern in the filter field (e.g., JIRA-1234 or feature/.*login)
   • The commit list will highlight matching commits
   • Toggle "Show only filtered commits" to hide unmatched commits
   • Each commit displays: short hash, author, date, and full message

2. Review Changed Files

   • Filtered commits are automatically selected
   • The file list shows all files modified in selected commits, sorted alphabetically
   • Click on any file to view its changes

3. View Changes

   • My Changes Only: Shows only the lines added/removed by selected commits (consolidated view)
   • Full File with Marked Changes: Shows the entire current file with selected commits' changes highlighted
   • Toggle between views using the buttons at the top of the diff view
   • Multiple changes to the same line are consolidated to show only the net effect of your selected commits

You're working on ticket PROJ-456 with multiple commits over several days. Other developers have also committed to the same files. Use this tool to:

1. Filter for PROJ-456
2. See only the 8 commits related to your ticket
3. Review all 23 files you changed
4. For each file, see exactly what YOUR ticket changed, ignoring unrelated modifications by others

Backend (Node.js)

• Pure Node.js with built-in modules only (http, child_process, fs, path, url)
• RESTful API serving JSON responses
• Git operations executed via child_process.exec() and child_process.spawn()
• Single-file server implementation for simplicity

Frontend (HTML/CSS/JS)

• Vanilla JavaScript (no frameworks)
• Bootstrap 5.3 from CDN for UI components
• Single-page application with client-side routing/state management
• Responsive design for desktop use

• GET /api/commits - Returns all commits with metadata (hash, author, date, message)
• GET /api/files?commits=hash1,hash2,... - Returns files changed in specified commits
• GET /api/diff?file=path&commits=hash1,hash2,... - Returns diff data for a file across commits
• GET / - Serves the main HTML interface
• GET /static/* - Serves static assets (CSS/JS if needed)

All Git data is retrieved using command-line git:

• git log --all --format=... for commit list
• git diff --name-only commit1 commit2... for file lists
• git log -p -- <file> for file history
• git show commit:path for file contents
• git blame for line-level attribution (optional)

When showing "My Changes Only":

1. Get the current state of the file
2. For each selected commit, extract the changes (additions/deletions)
3. Consolidate multiple changes to the same line, keeping only the net effect
4. Display as a unified diff showing before/after for selected commits only

This filters out changes made by other commits between your selected commits.

• Server only accepts connections from localhost
• No file system writes (read-only Git operations)
• Input sanitization for regex patterns and file paths
• Git operations executed in the repository directory only

Modern browsers with ES6+ support:

• Chrome/Edge 90+
• Firefox 88+
• Safari 14+

• Works only with local Git repositories
• Designed for single-user local use (not production deployment)
• No authentication/authorization
• Performance may degrade with very large repositories (1000+ commits in view)