# so-fancy/diff-so-fancy

Make your diffs human readable for improved code quality and faster defect detection. :tada:

Repository: https://github.com/so-fancy/diff-so-fancy
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/diff-so-fancy
Language: Perl
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: git, diff, diff-highlight, fancy, diffs, hacktoberfest
Last push: 2026-08-19T18:49:08+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 98/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 98, release rhythm 98, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3863, "days_push": 14, "days_rel": 17, "gap_med": 12, "n_releases_24m": 4}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 18082, forks 349 (observed 2026-08-28T04:11:26.302628+00:00)

## What it is
diff-so-fancy is a command-line utility that reformats git and unified diff output to be human-readable instead of machine-readable. It works as a git pager or diff filter, simplifying hunk headers, colorizing empty-line blocks, and stripping leading +/- symbols for faster defect spotting.

## Use cases
- make git diff output easier to read in the terminal
- improve code review by highlighting changes more clearly
- format unified diff output from the diff command
- spot defects faster when reviewing patches
- simplify git hunk headers to file and line locations
- configure a nicer default pager for git diffs

## When to choose
- you review git diffs daily in a terminal and want cleaner, more readable output
- you want a drop-in git pager/diffFilter that requires no daemon or GUI
- you need to pipe plain `diff -u` output through a readability formatter
- you want a lightweight, single-script tool installable via npm, brew, or system packages

## When to avoid
- you need machine-readable diff output for scripts or automation
- you prefer side-by-side or GUI diff views such as those in IDEs
- you need semantic or word-level diffing beyond formatting improvements
- your environment cannot run Perl scripts

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: stable
- function: version-control, developer-tools, formatter
- domain: developer-tools, version-control
- platform: cli, cross-platform, windows
- tags: git, diff, diff-viewer, pager, terminal, code-review, perl, readability, command-line, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- so-fancy/diff-so-fancy (main) score 98

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:26.302628+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:02:09.985645+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/so-fancy/diff-so-fancy (fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:26.302628+00:00, sha a5e3a599c226)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.