jot

A tiny inline terminal editor built specifically for git commit messages.

It renders directly in your terminal's scroll buffer, so there's no full-screen takeover and no context switch. Write the message, hit Ctrl+S, and your shell prompt comes back right below it.

Features

• Inline rendering: the editor appears in place, below your git commit, and blends into your terminal's background color.
• Batteries included: line numbers, soft wrap, and tab indentation out of the box.
• Message history: every message you write is remembered, even if you cancel, so a failed commit hook never eats your text.
• Cycle and search: flip through past messages with PgUp/PgDn, or fuzzy-search them with Ctrl+R.

Installation

jot is a command-line tool, so install it in its own isolated environment with uv or pipx:

uv tool install jot-editor
# or
pipx install jot-editor

This puts the jot command on your PATH. The package on PyPI is named jot-editor.

To try it without installing:

uvx --from jot-editor jot

Usage

As your git editor

git config --global core.editor jot

Or for a single commit:

GIT_EDITOR=jot git commit

Git's # comment lines stay visible while you type. If you cancel with Esc, jot exits with status 1 and git aborts the commit. This also applies to git commit --amend, git rebase -i, and so on.

Standalone

jot path/to/file     # edit a file in place
jot                  # write a quick note; the text goes to stdout on save
jot > note.txt       # ...so you can redirect or pipe it

Key bindings

History

Every message is saved to ~/.cache/jot/git_history.json when you save or cancel, so nothing is ever lost. jot keeps the most recent 100 messages and skips consecutive duplicates.

Lines starting with # (git's status comments) are never stored. When you apply a history entry, only the message part is replaced and the comment lines in the current file are kept.

The search panel matches the first line of each message and also the full text. Results are listed newest first.

Requirements

• Python 3.12 or newer
• Linux or macOS (jot uses POSIX terminal APIs; Windows isn't supported)
• For seamless blending with your theme, a terminal that answers the OSC 11 background color query (most modern terminals do). Otherwise jot falls back to the default background.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the development setup.

License

MIT. See LICENSE for details.