diff

Show differences between local component copies and the latest registry versions. Plain text by default, with an optional interactive TUI.

Usage

npx @gentleduck/cli diff [components...]

npx @gentleduck/cli diff [components...]

Compares your local component source against the latest registry version. Default output is plain text printed to the terminal (unified-diff style, colorized). Pass -g/--gui to open an interactive TUI instead.

Options

Flag	Description
`-c, --cwd <cwd>`	Working directory
`-g, --gui`	Open in interactive GUI mode (off by default)
`-w, --workspace <path>`	Target workspace

--gui is a plain on/off flag - it doesn't take a value. There's no --gui false; to get plain text just omit the flag.

Examples

# Diff a specific component (plain text)
npx @gentleduck/cli diff button

# Diff all installed components (plain text)
npx @gentleduck/cli diff

# Open the interactive TUI
npx @gentleduck/cli diff button --gui

What you see

Without --gui, each changed file prints as a unified diff: old/new line numbers, then a +/-/space prefix, then the content, colored green/red:

  12  12   function Button() {
  13     -   return <button />
      13 +   return <button {...props} />
  14  14   }

With --gui, you first pick a component from a list, then see the diff rendered full-screen. It starts in unified view; press Tab to switch to a side-by-side LOCAL / REGISTRY layout.

Key	Action
`j` / `k`	Scroll
`n` / `p`	Jump to next/previous hunk
`Tab`	Toggle unified / side-by-side view
`h` / `l`	Switch file (when a component has more than one changed file)
`Esc`	Back to the component list

There's no key to launch update from inside the diff TUI - run it separately.

Common workflow

cli diff: see what's drifted from upstream
cli update <name>: pull changes, choosing merge to resolve conflicts hunk-by-hunk (preserves your local edits)
cli diff <name>: verify the merge resolved correctly

Use in CI

For CI / scripts, diff (in its default plain-text mode) exits with code 1 when there's a diff and 0 when in sync:

npx @gentleduck/cli diff || echo "drift detected"

npx @gentleduck/cli diff || echo "drift detected"