codesnap

codesnap is a command-line tool (written in Go) for aggregating all code files in a project into a single Markdown block, suitable for providing “context” to an LLM (Large Language Model). This helps you easily copy & paste your entire project’s relevant source files into a prompt or a separate context window. I hated the process of doing this when my LLM use was heavy so I built this.

Contents

• Features
• Installation
• Usage
  • Command Options
• Ignore Patterns
  • Default Ignores
  • Custom Ignores
• Output Format
• Common Use Cases
• License

Features

• 🚀 Fast recursive codebase scanning
• 📝 Markdown-formatted output
• 📋 Direct clipboard support
• 🎯 Smart file filtering:
  • Skips binary files
  • Ignores sensitive content (env files, keys, etc.)
  • Excludes common build artifacts
• 🎛 Flexible ignore patterns:
  • Built-in defaults for common ignore patterns
  • Support for .codesnap_ignore file
  • Additional CLI ignore flags
• Token count (Note: This is based off tokenization used for gpt-4o, adjust accordingly for other models)

Installation

# Install directly with Go
go install github.com/wyattcupp/codesnap@latest

# Or clone and build
git clone https://github.com/wyattcupp/codesnap.git
cd codesnap
go build

Usage

# Basic usage (outputs to clipboard)
codesnap -c

# Save to file instead
codesnap -o codebase.md

# Scan specific directory
codesnap -d /path/to/project -c

# Add additional ignore patterns
codesnap -i "tests/" -i "*.tmp" -c

Command Options

Flags:
  -c, --clipboard       Copy output to clipboard
  -d, --dir string      Target directory to scan (default: current directory)
  -h, --help           Help for codesnap
  -i, --ignore strings  Additional patterns to ignore
  -o, --out string     Output file path for markdown
  -v, --verbose        Show files that were ignored

Ignore Patterns

Default Ignores

The tool comes with sensible defaults to ignore (to see the complete list, see the code):

• Version control directories (.git/, .svn/)
• Build artifacts (dist/, build/, *.exe)
• Dependencies (node_modules/, vendor/)
• Sensitive files (.env, *.key, credentials)
• Binary and media files
• Common metadata files

Custom Ignores

Create a .codesnap_ignore file in your project root:

# Ignore specific files
secret.txt
*.log

# Ignore directories
temp/
local/

The syntax follows .gitignore conventions:

• Use # for comments
• * matches any string except /
• ** matches zero or more directories
• Trailing / matches directories only
• Leading ! negates the pattern

Output Format

The tool generates markdown with each file, either copied to clipboard or to an output file, with format:

<codebase>

**path/to/file.ext**

```

// your file contents

```

</codebase>

The corresponding terminal output shows a success message, along with token count:

Token count: {total tokens in output}

License

MIT, use away