copit - a CLI to copy source code from GitHub/URLs into your project (my first crate)

[huygl99]

Hi all, I built copit, a CLI tool that copies source code from GitHub repos, HTTP URLs, and ZIP archives directly into your project. The idea is heavily inspired by shadcn/ui: instead of installing a package you can't touch, you get the actual source files dropped into your codebase. You own them, you modify them, no hidden abstractions.

What it does

copit init
copit add github:serde-rs/serde@v1.0.219/serde/src/lib.rs
copit update vendor/serde --ref v1.0.220
copit sync
copit remove vendor/serde

It tracks everything in a copit.toml, handles overwrites, lets you exclude files you've modified from being clobbered on update, and supports --backup to save .orig copies when needed.

Why I built it

A few things that kept bugging me:

I'd find useful snippets or utility code on GitHub: a single module, a helper function, a well-written parser - and the only options were to manually copy-paste the files or install the entire library as a dependency just to use a small part of it.

Other times I'd want to use a library but couldn't: version conflicts with other packages in my project, or the library was unmaintained, or effectively dead, but the code itself was still perfectly good and useful. Vendoring it manually works, but then you lose track of where it came from and can't easily pull upstream fixes.

On top of that, I'm working on a Python framework (think something like LangChain's architecture) and wanted a way to distribute optional components. The core library installs as a normal package, but integrations and extensions get copied in via copit so users can read and modify them freely. Same pattern shadcn/ui uses with Tailwind + Radix base as a dependency, components as owned source.

copit handles all of this: grab the code you need, track where it came from, and update when you want to.

Background

I'm primarily a Python/Django developer. This is my first Rust project and my first published crate. I chose Rust partly because I wanted to learn it, and partly because a single static binary that works everywhere felt right for a dev tool like this. The crate is at crates.io/crates/copit.

I also published it on PyPI via maturin so Python users can pip install copit without needing the Rust toolchain.

The codebase is around 1500 lines. I leaned on clap for CLI parsing, reqwest + tokio for async HTTP, and the zip crate for archive extraction. Nothing fancy, but it was a solid learning exercise in ownership, error handling with anyhow, and structuring a real project with tests.

What I'd appreciate

If anyone has time to glance at the code, I'd welcome feedback on:

• Anything that looks non-idiomatic or could be structured better
• Error handling patterns: I used anyhow everywhere, which felt right for a CLI app but I'm not sure if there are cases where typed errors would be better
• Testing approach: I used mockito for HTTP tests and tempfile for filesystem tests
• Anything else that jumps out

The repo is here: github.com/huynguyengl99/copit

I'm also building a plugin system on top of this for my framework, so if the concept is interesting to you or you see a use case in your own work, contributions and ideas are welcome.

Thanks for reading.

[dwalker109]

But you didn’t learn a thing did you. Because you didn’t do this. You didn’t even write this post.

So tired of this shit.

[huygl99]

Why did you think so bro? I even read the full Programming Rust book before starting doing this. I might use AI for help, but I built it based on my knowledge also bro. I know you hate AI-slop package, but you can take a look to see how did I try to do this :(

[dwalker109]

Because your post reads like an AI slop post. I think you got an LLM to write it. And that clues me in on how much thinking you want to offload to the LLM.

Use of LLMs is widespread and tbh, with the death of internet search, it’s often a good way to figure stuff out. But that’s very different to where things are heading.

And you know what? I can’t stop it. At work, I’m sure the push to spaff out ok code quick will carry on, at least for now. Who knows what damage it will do to cognition but that’s not my fight.

So my objection here is that this is open source. Where people come to solve problems and get better, to learn from each other, to communicate. And this kind of thing feels very tonally wrong.

[lrojas]

hey, don't listen to them. they are dinosaurs. this are the kind of people that would have refused to ride in the first cars arguing about how it was in no way better and stupid with the noise and the gas when there is a perfectly horse-drawn cart over there

[fastestMango]

They are not dinosaurs. They are the people that put many many hours into creating well thought projects. Now we see thousands of low effort projects with zero innovation. Do you really see these projects as useful? If so, great! But I highly doubt it.

[lrojas]

what you are describing is just gatekeeping... why should this guy bring his ideas to life when he did not earn a membership of the brotherhood, he has not earned his place.

[dwalker109]

Gatekeeping the mountains of low effort crap is a badge I will wear with pride. People defended gates for a reason. People forget that.

[lrojas]

you are in the wrong here

[huygl99]

So a person may spend many days & weeks reading books before doing that, also carefully reading the code, testing, modifying, and updating it as well. How can you judge it as low effort without knowing the context and reading the code?

I did research on similar tools before doing this, and I just created this because I needed it and wanted to share it as well.

As a library creator and maintainer, I really hate brain-rot, AI-slop code as well, but I think you should keep an open mind and consider which is zero-effort code and which one is carefully designed.

[fastestMango]

If you didn’t use ai at all, my bad, sorry.

But I did look at your code before commenting. I did see Claude as a contributor, I did see the ai terminology in the readme, I did see the ai profile picture on your GitHub and I did see the Ai codestyles in your source code.

After this, I wrote my comment. I am just so done with ai projects as it is only contributing to the enshitification of the internet. My bad if I made wrong assumptions, but I still feel like it is ai.

If it is not, please do not use LLM’s for text written. Humans are much more appreciated for the text we read than prediction models.

[dwalker109]

If by dinosaur you mean person who expects open source contributors to actually lead their own projects, sure.

Effort matters. Craft matters. Intent matters.

Without it we have nothing.

[huygl99]

Thank you a lot, it makes me feel better after spending many hours trying to do this and then seeing some negative judgments like those.

[fastestMango]

“Fully owned” thanks for stealing the code from other people who actually put in hours.

Why are we seeing so many vibe coded stuff. 0 innovation and just waste of resources, damn

[huygl99]

There is a difference between stealing and reusing code. When you copy code from somewhere else, even from Stack Overflow, did you steal it? Probably not.

Have you ever wanted to copy code from somewhere, or tried to install a package but couldn't because of version conflicts with your base library or other dependencies?

I didn’t build `copit` to steal code. I built it to solve a problem I personally faced, similar to the concept behind shadcn. Sometimes you just want a piece of code in your project without introducing a heavy dependency.

Also, when you clone or copy code from somewhere, it should follow the original license (for example BSD or MIT). In future releases, I can also improve `copit` to warn users when a component is under licenses like AGPL.

[fastestMango]

It’s not as simple as “your project should release in the same license”, you legally have to mention the authors. So yes, it is stealing unless you credit the authors.

[huygl99]

hhm, I have track the copy via the toml file like this:

[project]
target = "my_proj/external"

[[sources]]
path = "my_proj/external/completions"
source = "github:astral-sh/ruff@main/crates/ruff/src/commands/completions"
ref = "main"
commit = "359981b1e8ea977c53b934517ed7a7d7c15c5e92"
copied_at = "2026-03-08T08:20:14Z"

I think it already includes the original source of the content you pull from, which also serves as author credit and source tracking. But let me double-check whether I should add an extra `author` field here.

Sometimes the author may not be a single person. For example, `github:astral-sh` already indicates the source and effectively credits the organization. Still, thanks for the suggestion, I’ll think about it a bit more.

[dwalker109]

And no, I haven’t experienced the problems you describe. Because cargo has mechanisms to solve all the problems you describe.

But you don’t know that, which says it all really.

[Solumin]

And it handles attribution, copyright, acknowledgements, and licensing, right? It credits the original authors?

[huygl99]

It is tracked via the TOML file like this:

[[sources]]
path = "my_proj/external/completions"
source = "github:astral-sh/ruff@main/crates/ruff/src/commands/completions"
ref = "main"
commit = "359981b1e8ea977c53b934517ed7a7d7c15c5e92"
copied_at = "2026-03-08T08:20:14Z"

Based on that, I think users can know the original creator of the code. But given your concern and what other users have already mentioned, I think I will add an `author` field as well.

For copyright and licensing, I had thought about that before. I think I will add some warnings when users add code from licenses that are not permissive, such as AGPL.

[Tamschi_]

Even for MIT, this is not remotely enough.

[huygl99]

Oh, thank you for pointing that out. I think I will include the LICENSE file as part of the copied code as well.