RepoPack

Pack/unpack any source workspace regardless of technology stack (Python, Node.js, React, Angular, Vue, Rust, Go, Java, C#, and more) into a portable, structured JSON payload — and restore it faithfully from that payload.

Features

• Universal ignore engine — respects root and nested .gitignore files plus stack-agnostic defaults (node_modules, pycache, .venv, target/, dist/, secrets, lock files, …)
• Polyglot stack detection — auto-detects Node.js, React, TypeScript, Angular, Next.js, Vue, Python, Rust, Go, Java, C# from project sentinel files
• Binary safety — text files encoded as UTF-8; binaries skipped by default or included as Base64 with --include-binary
• 5 MB guard — files larger than 5 MB are skipped with a warning
• Path traversal shield — unpack validates every path against the destination root before writing anything
• MCP server — expose pack/unpack as tools to any MCP-compatible AI client (Claude Desktop, etc.)

Installation

pip install RepoPackPy

For development:

pip install -e ".[dev]"

Requires Python 3.10+.

CLI Usage

# Pack a directory into JSON
repopack pack [DIRECTORY] [-o output.json] [--include-binary] [--custom-ignore ".next,dist"]

# Unpack JSON back into a directory
repopack unpack <input.json> [-t TARGET_DIR] [--force]

# Start the MCP server (stdio transport)
repopack serve

Examples

# Pack current directory, write to file
repopack pack . -o workspace.json

# Pack a specific project, include binaries
repopack pack ~/projects/my-app -o my-app.json --include-binary

# Unpack into a new directory
repopack unpack workspace.json -t ./restored

# Unpack and overwrite existing files
repopack unpack workspace.json -t ./restored --force

JSON Payload Schema

{
  "version": "1.0",
  "metadata": {
    "created_at": "2026-07-26T12:00:00Z",
    "root_directory_name": "my-app",
    "detected_stack": ["Node.js", "React", "TypeScript"],
    "total_files": 38,
    "total_bytes": 128450
  },
  "files": [
    { "path": "src/App.tsx", "encoding": "utf-8", "content": "..." },
    { "path": "public/favicon.ico", "encoding": "base64", "content": "..." }
  ]
}

MCP Server Tools

When running repopack serve, two tools are registered via FastMCP:

Project Structure

repopack/
├── pyproject.toml
├── README.md
└── repopack/
    ├── __init__.py
    ├── cli.py          # Typer CLI (pack / unpack / serve)
    ├── mcp_server.py   # FastMCP server
    ├── packer.py       # Directory walker & JSON builder
    ├── unpacker.py     # JSON extractor & path-safe reconstructor
    └── utils.py        # Ignore engine, binary detector, stack detection
tests/
└── test_repopack.py    # 26-test pytest suite

Running Tests

pytest tests/ -v

Dependencies

• typer — CLI framework
• mcp — MCP SDK (FastMCP)
• pathspec — gitignore wildmatch pattern matching