Vibe: A Simple Prompt Tool for Your Git Workflow

Welcome to vibe, a small CLI tool that helps you:

1. Gather selected files from your repository into a prompt.
2. Copy that prompt to your clipboard and paste it into your LLM of choice.
3. Merge the edits that the LLM suggests back into your local repo automatically.

Installation

Build from source code.

To work on vibe, clone this repo, and then:

1. Build

   go build ./cmd/vibe
   

2. Test

   go test ./cmd/vibe
   

3. Install

   go install ./cmd/vibe
   

After installation, the vibe command is available in your $GOPATH/bin or wherever your Go environment places binaries.

Features

• File Selection UI An interactive TUI that lists all files in your repo (respecting .gitignore). You can search, toggle directories, or select individual files.

• Lightweight Prompt Templates Easily embed your selected files into a base layout or a “role” layout (e.g. <coder>). The prompt is rendered with a Go‑native templating system, allowing you to embed partials, inject data, and keep it flexible.

• .vibe.md Files for Context Create .vibe.md files in your repo directories. vibe picks these up (from the root down to your current directory) and includes them automatically in your prompt. This is handy if you have recurring instructions or explanations to pass on to your LLM.

• Merging LLM Edits The vibe merge command reads the LLM’s proposed changes back in “heredoc” format. If everything checks out, vibe applies those edits locally to the relevant files.

Copy‑and‑Paste Workflow

Below is a simple vibe flow:

1. Choose a Prompt File Prepare a text file with your instructions or discussion context. This file can contain “front matter” (flags or arguments recognized by vibe) at the top if you like.

2. Pick a Prompt Layout (“role”) By default, vibe uses the bulitin <coder> layout. You can specify something else with --role base or --role plan or --role writer.

3. Run vibe ask

   vibe ask userPromptFile --copy
   

   This generates a fully composed prompt (selected files, .vibe.md context, etc.) and copies the text to your clipboard.

4. Paste into Your LLM Go to your LLM (e.g. Claude, ChatGPT) and paste the entire text. The AI will produce some modifications or suggestions, using a format that can be automatically merged by vibe.

5. Copy the LLM’s Response Grab its text from the AI’s output into your clipboard.

6. Run vibe merge --paste This reads your clipboard for changes. If the tool recognizes valid changes, it applies them to your local repo. If there are unknown commands or verification errors, vibe shows them so you can inspect or fix them.

7. Review, Diff, and Test Look at your Git diff, run tests, keep or revert changes. If needed, refine your prompt file or proceed to your next steps.

The UserPrompt Template

Each “prompt file” can have front matter at the top enclosed in +++ ... +++ or --- ... --- lines.

Suppose you have a prompt file: ask-diff-to-role.md

+++
--select cmd/vibe/ask.go
--copy
+++

- vibe: change `diff` flag to `role`
	- remove `--diff`
	- add the "--role" flag
		- default to coder
	- when rendering in handleOutput, wrap the specified role in "<...>"
- fix tests

• Front Matter The lines between the triple plus or triple dash markers can include flags/arguments you’d normally pass on the CLI: --select, --all, --role, etc.

Try running vibe on the commit d73eaad to generate a full prompt, and copy to your clipboard:

vibe ask ask-diff-to-role.md

Paste into your LLM, and copy the response. Run merge and paste from your clipboard:

vibe merge --paste

If you are lucky, the changes will apply automatically.

See these files for the relevant input and output:

• examples/ask-diff-to-role.md
• examples/ask-diff-to-role.prompt.md
• examples/ask-diff-to-role.response.md

Pattern Types

• Fuzzy Matching (default) Simple text patterns match files using fuzzy search:

  --select foo      # Matches files containing "foo" anywhere in the path
  

• Regex Patterns Prefix with / to use regular expressions:

  --select "/\.go$"  # Matches files ending with ".go"
  

• Negation Patterns Prefix with ! to exclude matches:

  --select "!_test.go"  # Select files not matching "_test.go"
  

• Compound Filtering Use | to combine patterns (logical AND):

  --select "cmd|main.go"  # Files containing both "cmd" AND "main.go"
  

• Relative Paths

  --select "./cmd"  # Same as --select cmd
  

• Multiple Patterns Specify multiple --select flags to collect together different sets of files:

  --select "/\.go$" --select "/\.md$"  # All Go and Markdown files
  

Template Partials

• Partials If you want to bring in partial templates, you can place lines like {{ partial "<myRole>" }} (for system templates) or {{ partial "@repoRoot/whatever" }} (for repo‑root partials) or {{ partial "./someLocalPartial" }} (for local partials in the same directory).