intentdiff

intentdiff is a structure-aware Git diff for code review. It helps developers see what actually changed by separating formatting noise, moved code, probable renames, import reorders, comment/doc edits, and meaningful edits.

This PyPI package provides the intentdiff command for Python users.

Install

python -m pip install intentdiff
intentdiff --help

This package is currently a lightweight installer shim. On first run it installs the native Rust CLI with:

cargo install intentdiff --locked

Requirements:

• Python 3.8+
• Rust/Cargo available on PATH, unless INTENTDIFF_BINARY points to a preinstalled native binary

If you already installed the native binary:

INTENTDIFF_BINARY=/path/to/intentdiff intentdiff --help

Quick start

# unstaged Git changes
intentdiff

# staged changes
intentdiff --staged

# compare revisions
intentdiff main...HEAD
intentdiff HEAD~1 HEAD

# direct file comparison
intentdiff old.py new.py

# machine-readable output
intentdiff --format json

# CI-style check
intentdiff --check --meaningful-only

What it classifies

intentdiff produces explicit change events such as:

• formatting_only
• comment_only
• documentation_only
• import_reorder
• moved_unchanged
• moved_modified
• probable_rename
• literal_changed
• operator_changed
• control_flow_changed
• textual_change
• binary_change
• unknown

Every classification includes confidence and evidence in JSON output. The tool does not casually claim runtime behavioral equivalence.

Example

Summary
  5 files changed
  1 meaningful edits
  2 formatting-only changes
  1 unchanged code moves
  1 import reorders

Review first
  Medium  src/auth.rs:81
        numeric literal set changed

Language support

v0.1 supports a focused initial set:

• Rust
• Python
• JavaScript
• TypeScript / TSX
• JSON
• YAML
• TOML
• Markdown

Malformed and unsupported files fall back to token or normalized textual comparison, so visible changes are retained.

Privacy and safety

By default, intentdiff:

• makes no network requests;
• collects no telemetry;
• does not execute project code;
• does not run formatters or external tools automatically.

The PyPI shim may invoke Cargo to install the Rust binary. The core CLI remains local-first.

More information

• GitHub: https://github.com/harivilasp/intentdiff
• crates.io: https://crates.io/crates/intentdiff
• PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/intentdiff/

Current limitation

This PyPI package is a shim in v0.1, not a bundled native wheel containing the Rust binary. Prebuilt platform wheels are planned.