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Why contextzip?

Every AI coding session starts the same way. You hunt down the relevant files, skip node_modules and build output by hand, zip it all, find the zip and upload it. Next session, you do it again.

contextzip does all of that for you. Run it from your project root and it:

1. Detects your stack (Node.js, Next.js, Python, Django, FastAPI, Rust, Go, Ruby, monorepos included).
2. Excludes the noise: dependencies, build output, caches, binaries, logs, and anything in your .gitignore.
3. Keeps secrets out: .env files, private keys, cloud credentials and Terraform state are left out by default. If you include your .env on purpose, its values are redacted.
4. Puts the ZIP on your clipboard as a real file, so you can paste it straight into Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or any other upload box.

When the AI sends changed files back, contextzip apply-zip writes them into your project safely, and warns you before touching anything you've edited since.

Table of contents

• Installation
• Quick start
• Features
  • Smart packaging
  • Package only what changed
  • AI-powered file selection
  • Applying AI changes back
  • Terminal error watcher
  • Visual config UI
• Command reference
• Configuration
• What is always excluded
• Where files go
• Python API
• Privacy & security
• Platform support
• Contributing
• License

Installation

contextzip needs Python 3.9 or newer.

pip install contextzip

Installing with pipx or uv keeps it isolated from your projects:

pipx install contextzip
# or
uv tool install contextzip

This installs two commands that do the same thing: contextzip and the shorter cz.

To update later, run contextzip update. It works out whether you installed with pip, pipx or uv and upgrades the right one.

Quick start

cd ~/projects/my-app
contextzip

You don't need any flags. contextzip detects your framework, excludes the noise, writes codebase.zip into .contextzip/output/codebase/ and copies it to your clipboard. Paste it into your AI tool.

Some other common runs:

contextzip --dry-run --verbose              # preview every included/excluded file, write nothing
contextzip --git-changes                    # only what you've changed
contextzip --prompt "fix the login redirect bug"   # let AI pick the relevant files
contextzip include src/ app/                # only these folders
contextzip include src/ .env                # .env too, values redacted
contextzip exclude tests/ '*.snap'          # everything except these
contextzip apply-zip                        # write the AI's changes back

Features

Smart packaging

contextzip scans your project and recognises its stack from marker files such as package.json, next.config.*, pyproject.toml, manage.py, Cargo.toml, go.mod and Gemfile. It looks a couple of levels deep, so a monorepo with a Next.js frontend and a FastAPI backend gets both rule sets applied.

On top of the stack rules, contextzip also:

• respects your .gitignore (turn this off with --no-gitignore),
• flags large files (1 MB or more by default) and binary files before packaging,
• skips dangling symlinks and unreadable files, and tells you why,
• writes a plain-text report next to every ZIP listing what went in and what was left out.

Package only what changed

contextzip --git-changes

This packages only the files git reports as staged, modified or untracked. It's ideal for code review or "here's what I changed, what's wrong?" prompts. Deleted files, submodules and monorepo roots are handled for you, and the secret-exclusion rules still apply to files git tracks.

AI-powered file selection

contextzip --prompt "add rate limiting to the login endpoint"

Describe your task in plain language and Gemini picks only the files that matter. The ZIP also includes a prompt.txt describing the task, so the AI tool you paste it into knows what you want.

• Setup: you need a free Gemini API key. contextzip walks you through it the first time you use --prompt, or you can set the GEMINI_API_KEY environment variable.
• What is sent: only the list of file paths and sizes that already passed the exclusion rules, plus your prompt. File contents never leave your machine.
• Fallback: if Gemini is rate-limited or unreachable, a local keyword-based selector takes over, so --prompt keeps working.
• Model: gemini-2.5-flash-lite by default.

Applying AI changes back

contextzip apply-zip              # picks up a ZIP from .contextzip/inbox/
contextzip apply-zip fix.zip      # or point at one directly
contextzip apply-zip --dry-run    # preview without writing anything

Every ZIP contextzip creates gets a local manifest containing a hash of each file. It's stored next to the ZIP and never inside it, so the AI tool never sees it. When a ZIP comes back, apply-zip compares every file against that manifest:

apply-zip only adds and modifies files. It never deletes anything. It also unwraps the extra top-level folder that AI tools and "Download ZIP" buttons often add.

Terminal error watcher

contextzip watch -- npm run dev
contextzip watch -- python manage.py runserver
contextzip watch -- python -m pytest --tb=short

contextzip runs your command and watches its output. When a stack trace appears (Python, Django and Node.js/Next.js errors are recognised), it asks whether to package debug context. Press D and you get debug-context.zip containing:

• prompt.txt: an auto-generated description of the problem
• terminal-error.txt: the error output with ANSI codes and noise stripped out
• source-files.zip: the source files named in the stack trace

If you press Ctrl+C before packaging anything, you get one last chance to capture the whole session.

Visual config UI

contextzip config --ui

This opens a local browser tab where you can tick files and folders to always include or exclude, with a live preview of what the ZIP will contain. It saves to .contextzip/config.json. The server binds to 127.0.0.1 only, needs a random one-time session token and shuts itself down when you're done.

Command reference

Run flags work on contextzip, include and exclude:

Every command supports -h / --help, and contextzip --version prints the installed version.

For every flag of every subcommand (apply-zip, watch, config, update), see CLI.md or the online CLI reference.

Configuration

contextzip has two config files, and both are optional.

Project config: .contextzip/config.json

This holds per-project settings. Edit it by hand or with contextzip config --ui. Every key is optional:

{
  "always_include": ["docs/architecture.md"],  // force-include, even if a rule or .gitignore excludes it
  "always_exclude": ["*.snap", "fixtures/"],   // a standing --exclude on every run
  "workspace_location": "git-root",            // "git-root" | "cwd" | "/some/path"
  "ai": {
    "enabled": true,
    "max_files": 10,                           // cap on files the AI may select
    "prompt_template": "We use pytest, not unittest."  // prepended to every prompt.txt
  },
  "limits": {
    "max_file_size_mb": 1,                     // threshold for "large file" warnings
    "redact_secrets": false                    // scan included files and mask secret-looking values
  },
  "applied_zip_retention": 1,                  // past apply-zip archives to keep
  "cleanup": { "enabled": true, "keep_recent": 1 },
  "webui": { "auto_open": true, "port": null }
}

.contextzip/ is fully gitignored by default. If your team wants to share these settings, commit the file explicitly with git add -f .contextzip/config.json.

Personal config

Your Gemini API key and personal defaults live outside the project, so they're never committed:

contextzip config                          # show the current configuration
contextzip config --reset-key              # clear the Gemini key and set it up again
contextzip config --set-workspace cwd      # put .contextzip/ in the current directory
contextzip config --show-key-path          # print the config file location

The full option-by-option guide is at contextzip.vercel.app/configuration.

What is always excluded

These patterns apply to every project, whatever its stack or .gitignore says, and in --git-changes mode too:

• Secrets & credentials: .env, .env.*, *.pem, *.key, *.p12, *.pfx, *.jks, *.keystore, *.ppk, SSH private keys (id_rsa, id_ed25519, …), .npmrc, .netrc, .pypirc, .pgpass, Docker auth config, .aws/credentials, service-account and *credentials*.json files, kubeconfigs
• Infrastructure state: *.tfstate, .terraform/
• Version control & editors: .git/, .svn/, .hg/, .vscode/, .idea/, swap files, .DS_Store
• Logs, caches & temp files: *.log, logs/, .cache/, tmp/, *.tmp, *.bak
• Binaries & media: executables, shared libraries, images, video, audio and archives
• Project boilerplate: CHANGELOG, LICENSE, CONTRIBUTING, SECURITY.md, CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md, GitHub issue/PR templates

To bring one back, name it explicitly with contextzip include .env, list it under always_include in the project config, or tick it in contextzip config --ui. --exclude and .gitignore can't bring them back, and naming a folder like src/ doesn't pull in the secret files inside it.

Secret files you include on purpose are always redacted. If you include your .env so the AI can see which variables your app expects, every key and comment is kept but every value becomes [REDACTED]:

# .env on disk                          # .env in the ZIP
DATABASE_URL=postgres://u:pw@db/app     DATABASE_URL=[REDACTED]
export API_KEY="sk-live-…"  # prod      export API_KEY="[REDACTED]"  # prod

Other secret files (private keys, credential files) get a secret-pattern scan. Binary ones like .p12 can't be redacted, so they're left out. All of this happens whatever your other settings say.

For extra safety, set limits.redact_secrets: true to also mask API keys, tokens, JWTs and private-key blocks hardcoded inside ordinary files that get included. Every run's report lists what was redacted.

Tip: before sharing a sensitive project, run contextzip --dry-run --verbose to see exactly what will go into the ZIP.

Where files go

contextzip keeps everything in a .contextzip/ folder at your git root (change this with contextzip config --set-workspace):

.contextzip/
├── output/
│   ├── codebase/      codebase.zip + manifest + report   (contextzip)
│   ├── git-changes/   changes.zip + manifest + report    (--git-changes)
│   ├── prompt/        vibe.zip + manifest + report       (--prompt)
│   └── watch/         debug-context.zip                  (contextzip watch)
├── inbox/             drop AI-returned ZIPs here for apply-zip
└── config.json        project config (optional)

Old outputs are cleaned up automatically, and only the most recent set is kept. You can change this with the cleanup setting.

Python API

contextzip is also a library. The functions behave like the CLI but return plain Python objects and raise exceptions instead of printing.

from contextzip import get_files, get_git_changes, create_zip, apply_zip, detect_ecosystem

# All project files, filtered by .gitignore and the built-in rules
collection = get_files(include=["src/"], exclude=["*.log"])
for path in collection.files:          # plain pathlib.Path objects
    print(path)

# Only git-changed files, zipped
changes = get_git_changes()
pkg = create_zip(changes, output="/tmp/changes.zip")
print(f"Packed {pkg.file_count} files → {pkg.zip_path}")

# What stack is this?
print(detect_ecosystem("."))

All exceptions inherit from ContextzipError: NotARepositoryError, GitNotFoundError, GitCommandError, NoFilesError and ZipNotFoundError.

For full signatures, see contextzip.vercel.app/cli#python-api.

Privacy & security

• Local by default. Packaging, apply-zip, watch and the config UI never make network requests.
• Network use is opt-in and limited to two features:
  • --prompt sends file paths, sizes and your prompt to the Gemini API. File contents are never sent.
  • contextzip update asks PyPI for the latest version number.
• No telemetry. Nothing is collected or phoned home.
• Manifests stay local. apply-zip manifests are written next to the ZIP and never inside it.
• Secrets are excluded or redacted. See What is always excluded.

Found a vulnerability? Please follow SECURITY.md and report it privately rather than in a public issue.

Platform support

If the clipboard can't be used, contextzip opens the output folder with the ZIP selected and tells you why. Use --no-clipboard to skip this step entirely.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome, especially new framework rule sets and edge-case fixes. Not up for writing code? Request a feature or request your language. Both turn into GitHub issues ranked by 👍. To set up a local copy:

git clone https://github.com/akadeepesh/contextzip
cd contextzip
python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate   # Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -e .
contextzip --version

Adding a new language takes three small steps: a PATTERNS list in contextzip/rules/, one registry entry and one detection rule. CONTRIBUTING.md walks through it, along with PR conventions. Please open an issue before starting a large PR.

License

MIT © Deepesh