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CommitBrief Wiki

Local, LLM-powered code review for your git diffs. CommitBrief reviews staged and unstaged changes, arbitrary git diff ranges, and GitHub pull requests against your project's own rules — from the terminal, with the provider of your choice.

Note

This wiki documents only what ships in the binary. Every command, flag, and configuration key here was verified directly against the source.

How it works

1. Pick a scope — staged/unstaged changes, a diff range, or a GitHub PR.
2. CommitBrief builds the prompt — your COMMITBRIEF.md rules plus the filtered diff, with secret and cost guards in front of every provider call.
3. A provider reviews it — Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, Ollama, or a host CLI (claude / gemini).
4. You get structured findings — severity-coded cards, JSON, or markdown, with optional --fail-on gating for CI.

Quick reference

I want to…	Run	Page
Install CommitBrief	brew install CommitBrief/tap/commitbrief	Installation
Configure a provider	commitbrief setup	setup
Review staged changes	commitbrief	Review
Review the working tree	commitbrief --unstaged	Review
Review a commit range	commitbrief diff HEAD~3 HEAD	diff
Review a GitHub PR	commitbrief remote pr 123	remote pr
Summarize a range in plain language	commitbrief summary main...develop	summary
Generate a message and commit	commitbrief commit	commit
Preview without spending tokens	commitbrief dry-run --staged	dry-run
Gate CI on severity	commitbrief --fail-on=high	Exit codes
Get machine-readable output	commitbrief --json	Output formats
Install a git hook	commitbrief install-hook	install-hook
Diagnose a broken setup	commitbrief doctor	doctor

Getting started

• Installation — Homebrew, Scoop, go install, raw binaries.
• Quick start — fresh install to first review in three steps.
• First-time setup — what setup writes, and where.

Commands

Reviewing

• Review (default command) — review staged / unstaged changes.
• diff — review any git diff range or commit.
• remote pr — review a GitHub pull request end to end.

Summarizing

• summary — plain-language digest of a change set, grouped by area (read-only).

Committing

• commit — generate a commit message and run git commit.

Setup & configuration

• init — scaffold COMMITBRIEF.md and OUTPUT.md.
• setup — interactive provider / model wizard.
• config — get, set, and show config keys.
• providers — list, switch, and test providers.
• doctor — health-check the whole pipeline.

Integration

• install-hook — wire CommitBrief into a git hook.

Inspect (no tokens spent)

• dry-run — show the resolved pipeline and cost estimate.
• list — full command / flag reference plus active config.

Maintenance

• compress — shrink COMMITBRIEF.md via the provider.
• cache — inspect and prune the review cache.

Configuration

• Configuration files — the two-tier YAML and merge order.
• Environment variables — keys and runtime overrides.
• Global flags — flags shared by every command.
• Filtering — the three-layer ignore plus path-filter pipeline.

Providers

• Providers overview — the nine review backends compared.
• Anthropic
• OpenAI
• Google Gemini
• DeepSeek / Mistral / Cohere — OpenAI-compatible APIs.
• Ollama (local)
• claude-cli / gemini-cli / codex-cli — host-CLI-backed providers.

Output

• Output formats — cards, JSON, markdown, clipboard.
• COMMITBRIEF.md — the review-rules system prompt.
• OUTPUT.md — the local rendering template.
• JSON schema v1 — the locked --json contract.

Operations

• Cache behavior — keys, location, TTL, and savings.
• Secret scanner — the pre-send credential guard.
• Cost preflight — token-cost estimation and thresholds.
• --fail-on and exit codes — CI gating semantics.

Reference

• Severity levels — what critical / high / medium / low / info mean.
• Localization (en, tr) — language selection and parity.
• Troubleshooting — common symptoms and fixes.