How to compare your branch with main

In gitty, press b to compare HEAD with any branch, and pick main as the other side. The result is split into what is behind, what is ahead, and the files that differ.

What you need: gitty installed and a repository with your branch checked out and a main branch to compare against.

What the three views mean

Before you open a pull request or merge, two questions matter. What does my branch contain that main does not, and what has main gained since I branched? Compare answers both, and adds a third view for the files that differ. The compare screen has one tab for each: behind, ahead and files. Because the comparison starts from HEAD, check out the branch you want to review first, then compare it with the base.

The base does not have to be main. The docs say b compares HEAD with any branch, so the same steps work against a release branch or a colleague’s branch.

Steps

1. Open the repository in gitty with the branch you are reviewing checked out.
2. Press b to compare with a branch.
3. Pick the branch to compare against, for example main.
4. Read the first tab, then move between the behind, ahead and files tabs with h and l, or the left and right arrow keys. The README’s key table lists these as “compare: previous tab” and “compare: next tab”, and their config names are compare_prev_tab and compare_next_tab.
5. Press Esc to end the compare. The docs list Esc as the key that ends a range, search or compare.

What you should see: three views of the same comparison. Behind lists what main has that your branch lacks, ahead lists what your branch has that main lacks, and the files view lists the files that differ.

Keep your refs current

A comparison reflects the refs you have locally. Press f to fetch before you compare, so main matches what is on the remote. Progress shows in the top bar, and x cancels a running fetch, pull or push. gitty also fetches in the background every few minutes, controlled by auto_fetch_minutes, which defaults to 5 and which 0 turns off.

How fast the count is

The ahead and behind count is the heavy part of a comparison on a big repository. gitty’s benchmark measures it on the Linux kernel, between master and v6.0, across 360,606 commits, and records 88 ms against a budget of under 150 ms. That figure comes from a release build on Apple Silicon with a warm cache, so it shows the scale you can expect and not a guarantee for your machine.

Compare or change the scope

Outside compare, the History tab has r, which switches the list between the current branch plus its upstream and every ref. That shows refs side by side in the commit list. Use b when you want the behind and ahead counts and the files that differ. While compare is open, the History-only keys such as /, n, N, V and r do nothing, because compare shows its own lists; press Esc first to get them back.

Rebind it

If b clashes with another habit, the config name for compare is compare, and you can rebind it under [keys] in ~/.config/gitty/config.toml. The tab keys are compare_prev_tab and compare_next_tab. A rebound action loses its default keys, so list every key you want it to keep.

Marks outside compare

You do not need to open compare to see where you stand against your own upstream. The History tab, which you open with 2, marks commits that are ahead of or behind the upstream, and on a branch that has never been pushed, ↑ marks what pushing it would publish. Compare with b is for the other question, where your branch stands against any branch you choose.

Next steps

Once you know which commits differ, read them on the History tab. How to review a range of commits shows how to select them with V and read their combined diff, and How to search commits by text, author or path helps you find a specific one first.

The compare behavior is summarized in Using gitty.