reef · alpha · a terminal workbench

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

The minimal dev terminal for the AI coding era.

$ npx @reef-tui/cli Blushyes/reef

reef — ~/projects/app — git: main

§1Why

The 30-second stance.

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.

§2What's in the box

Four tabs and two palettes. That's the product.

Files tab

Tree navigator with a read-only preview pane. Expand, collapse, page, rebuild.

Search tab

Workdir-wide content search (ripgrep-powered, respects .gitignore) with live preview. Modal input / list, whole-row horizontal scroll. Space F for an overlay.

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) behind a confirm banner.

Graph tab

Commit DAG with ref chips and a lane renderer. Select a commit for inline detail and per-file diff — message, author, changed files.

Palettes — Space P quick-opens a file by fuzzy path, Space F launches global content search (same backend as the Search tab; Alt+Enter 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.

§3Keybindings

Everything you need, mapped to one hand.

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
`r`	rebuild tree

Search tab›

Key	Action
`/` / `i`	focus the search input
`Esc`	return to list mode
`↑`/`↓`, `j`/`k`	navigate results
`Enter`, double-click	reveal match in Files tab
`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)
`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
`PgUp` / `PgDn`	page
`m` / `f`	commit-file diff layout / mode
`t`	tree / flat changed-files

§4Install

npm picks the right native binary. Supported: macOS (arm64, x64), Linux (arm64, x64), Windows (x64).

Via npm (recommended):

# Run without installing
npx @reef-tui/cli

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

Build from source:

cargo build --release

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

Reef runs anywhere. Outside a git repo, the Git and Graph tabs show a "Not a git repository" placeholder; the Files tab still browses the current directory.

§5Status

Shipping early, iterating in the open.

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

On the roadmap: fuzzy file search, content grep, and a richer file viewer — all built in, not bolted on.