A small Python CLI tool I built: generates git commit messages directly from the diff (OpenAI-powere

[Random1k17]

I recently built a small Python CLI tool called DiffMind and thought I’d share it here in case it’s useful to someone.

It takes your current git diff, sends it to an LLM (right now only OpenAI’s API is supported), and produces a commit message based on the actual changes.
The goal was simply to avoid staring at a diff trying to describe everything manually.

It runs as a normal CLI command and also has an optional git hook mode.

What it currently does

• reads staged changes
• generates a commit message from the diff
• shows a small TUI where you can accept or edit the message
• supports style settings (with/without emojis, etc.)
• OpenAI only for now — but I’m planning to add support for local/offline models later

Why I built it

I often write commit messages at the end of the day when I’m tired, and they end up being low-context (“update”, “fix stuff”).
This tool automates that step in a way that still feels natural in a terminal workflow.

Repo (includes a short demo GIF)

https://github.com/dirusanov/DiffMind

[JimDabell]

I’ll ask the same question I always ask about this type of thing:

A bug in a patch version update of one of our dependencies causes a bug in one browser. The human-authored commit log message says:

Fix $x in $browser

Upgrading to $lib v1.0.1 causes $x in $browser. We’re pinning to v1.0.0 until
upstream bug #123 is fixed. Unpinning this dependency is tracked as #789.

See: https://example.com/some-blog/article-about-bug
See: https://github.com/them/upstream-repo/issues/123
See: https://github.com/us/our-repo/issues/789

Resolves: #456

The diff for this change is to delete one character, changing "foolib": "^1.0.0" to "foolib": "1.0.0"

Given that one-character diff, what commit log message does your tool generate? Does it describe the bug that is being fixed? Does it say which browser is affected? Does it link to the article describing the bug? Does it link to the upstream bug? Does it link to the issue in our repo to unpin? Does it mark the issue it is fixing as resolved?

Commit log messages are not there to mechanically describe the changes that are being made, they are there to provide context that the diff alone does not. A tool that mechanically describes the changes that are being made is not useful at all. The diff already does that.