Git Leviathan

A fast, native Git client for humans who like to see the shape of their history.

This is a brand new piece of software. Expect bugs and instability! If you encounter a bug, I would hugely appreciate if you'd create a new issue.

Looking for MacOS and Windows users to test. Please let me know what issues you run into!

A lot of Git clients exist, but most of them still look like they are stuck in the '90s. The ones that do feel good to use are usually closed source, slow because they are built on Electron, or hard to shape around your own workflow.

Git Leviathan started as an attempt to solve all three problems at once: an open source Git client that is native, fast, and built to be extended. It is designed around the graph first, so branches, merges, tags, stashes, and release trains are visible as the shape of the project instead of hidden behind a flat log.

• Graph-first history view — follow branches, merges, tags, stashes, and long-lived maintenance lines without losing context.
• Commit details at a glance — select a commit and inspect the message, author, parents, changed files, and stats in one place.
• Diff viewer with syntax highlighting — read changes with tree-sitter based highlighting.
• Multi-tab workspace — keep several repositories open side by side.
• Plugin system — extend the app with Lua plugins for commands, UI slots, dock panels, graph decorations, services, and more. Documentation coming soon.
• Live filesystem watching — the UI updates when your working tree does.
• Structured error reporting — auth failures, corrupt objects, and network issues surfaced with context, not stack traces.
• Cross-platform — Linux, macOS, and Windows.
• Fully native, fully offline — no Electron, no telemetry, no account.

Pre-built binaries for every tagged release are available on the Releases page. Pick the asset that matches your platform:

Replace <version> with the release you're downloading (e.g. 0.1.0).

sudo dpkg -i git-leviathan_<version>-1_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get install -f   # pull in any missing dependencies

sudo dnf install ./git-leviathan-<version>-1.x86_64.rpm
# or: sudo rpm -i git-leviathan-<version>-1.x86_64.rpm

Extract the archive to / to install system-wide (binary goes to /usr/bin, desktop entry and icons land in /usr/share):

sudo tar -xzf git-leviathan-<version>-linux-amd64.tar.gz -C /
sudo gtk-update-icon-cache /usr/share/icons/hicolor   # optional, refreshes icon cache

To uninstall:

sudo rm /usr/bin/git_leviathan \
        /usr/share/applications/git-leviathan.desktop \
        /usr/share/icons/hicolor/*/apps/git-leviathan.png

tar -xzf git-leviathan-<version>-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz
mv "git-leviathan-<version>-aarch64-apple-darwin/Git Leviathan.app" /Applications/

The app is not signed or notarized. The first time you launch it, macOS will block it — right-click Git Leviathan.app → Open, then confirm. After that it launches normally.

1. Download git-leviathan-<version>-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip.
2. Extract it somewhere permanent (e.g. C:\Program Files\Git Leviathan\).
3. Run git_leviathan.exe. Optionally create a Start Menu shortcut.

SmartScreen may warn on first launch — click More info → Run anyway.

Requires a recent Rust toolchain. On Linux you also need fontconfig development headers.

# Linux prerequisites (Debian/Ubuntu)
sudo apt-get install libfontconfig1-dev

git clone https://github.com/shinyvision/git-leviathan.git
cd git-leviathan
cargo build --release
./target/release/git_leviathan

To build a distributable package yourself:

cargo install cargo-deb cargo-generate-rpm
cargo deb                 # -> target/debian/*.deb
cargo generate-rpm        # -> target/generate-rpm/*.rpm

Released under the MIT License. © 2026 Rachel Snijders.