whatijustdid

whatijustdid

whatijustdid turns committed code diffs into persistent AI summaries. It shows what each commit changed; it does not reuse commit messages as descriptions.

Storage model

Git remains the commit ledger. whatijustdid keeps compact generation state and AI summaries in local SQLite. It does not create a whatijustdid/ directory in the repository:

repository                 Git-private metadata
└── whatijustdid.json       └── whatijustdid/
                               ├── summaries.sqlite
                               └── data.js (rebuildable viewer cache)

Raw diffs, commit messages, and full commit metadata are not copied into SQLite. They are read from Git when needed. The database lives under git rev-parse --git-common-dir, so it:

• never appears in git status or repository history;
• persists across checkouts and is shared by linked worktrees in the same clone;
• stays local to one clone, laptop, and OS account;
• uses SQLite WAL plus generation leases so concurrent worktrees do not make duplicate AI calls.

Hosted account/team sync is intentionally reserved for a later paid cloud service. whatijustdid will sync records through that service rather than commit databases or summaries to Git.

Quick start

You need Git, Node.js 22.13 or newer, and credentials for one supported AI agent.

1. Export the AI credential before running init. The generic variable works with whichever agent is configured:

   export WHATIJUSTDID_AGENT_API_KEY=sk-...

   Codex/OpenAI is the default. You can instead use its standard variable:

   export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...

2. Install and initialize the app in your Git repository:

   npm install --save-dev whatijustdid
   npx whatijustdid init

3. Commit normally. The installed hook summarizes each committed code diff:

   git add -A
   git commit -m "feat: add account settings"

4. Open the changelog again whenever you need it:

   npx whatijustdid preview

On first init, the configured AI chooses a real dish from somewhere in the world as the project name. If the AI request is unavailable, init chooses from the bundled dish list instead. The result is written to projectName in whatijustdid.json, where you can change it at any time.

Initialization also creates private SQLite storage, installs Git hooks, builds the private viewer cache, and opens the preview. The bundled viewer remains package-owned; it is not copied into the repository. Use npx whatijustdid init --no-preview when a script must initialize and exit.

To select another agent before init:

# DeepSeek
export WHATIJUSTDID_AGENT=deepseek
export DEEPSEEK_API_KEY=sk-...

# Claude
export WHATIJUSTDID_AGENT=claude
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...

# Local Ollama (no API key needed)
export WHATIJUSTDID_AGENT=llama

To override the default model per agent:

export WHATIJUSTDID_MODEL=gpt-5.4   # or another model supported by your agent

raw is not an agent and there is no commit-message fallback.

After each successful commit, the post-commit hook summarizes the committed code diff and rebuilds the private viewer data. The hook prints whether generation succeeded or failed. Agent failures never block the Git commit; failed records appear in the viewer and remain resumable in SQLite.

The viewer still lists recent Git commits that have no local summary. This includes commits brought in through a pull: individual pulled commits are not automatically sent to the configured AI agent. Their summary is shown as N/A, alongside the changed-line count and an estimated token range. Open the page through whatijustdid preview and choose Generate on one commit, or use backfill for an explicitly bounded range.

Skipping summary generation

Skip per-commit summary generation in one of two ways:

# Include [skip wijd] in the commit message
git commit -m "chore: bump deps [skip wijd]"

# Set the WHATIJUSTDID_SKIP environment variable
WHATIJUSTDID_SKIP=1 git commit -m "chore: bump deps"

To install or refresh only the local hooks:

npx whatijustdid hook

To remove only whatijustdid-owned hook blocks:

npx whatijustdid unhook

Existing hook logic is preserved. Git hooks are clone-local and normally shared by linked worktrees.

AI commit messages

whatijustdid commit wraps git commit: it sends the staged diff to the configured agent, proposes a conventional-commit message, and asks before committing.

git add -p
npx whatijustdid commit

wijd: summarizing 2 staged files with codex…

  feat: added a commit command that drafts the message from the staged diff

wijd: commit with this message?
  ❯ commit
    regenerate
    cancel

Pick with ↑/↓ and Enter (or the shortcut letters y/r/c; Esc cancels):

• commit runs git commit -m with the proposed message; the normal post-commit hook then records the summary as usual.
• regenerate asks the agent for another message.
• cancel exits; nothing is committed.

When nothing is staged yet, the CLI offers to stage for you instead of failing:

wijd: nothing staged.
  ❯ stage everything (git add -A)
    cancel

Flags:

# Stage everything first (git add -A), then draft and commit
npx whatijustdid commit --all

# Accept the first generated message without prompting
npx whatijustdid commit --yes

# Forward extra flags to git commit after --
npx whatijustdid commit -- --no-verify

Because commit is a wrapper, it prints every git command it runs ($ git add -A, $ git commit -m '…') so nothing happens invisibly. The staged diff is bounded by maxDiffBytes, and the message style follows the configured verbosity.

Existing history and token control

whatijustdid never spends tokens across repository history without an explicit scope.

# Preview the default bounded scope; makes zero AI calls
npx whatijustdid backfill

# Generate summaries for at most 25 recent commits
npx whatijustdid backfill --limit 25

# Preview all reachable commits; makes zero AI calls without --yes
npx whatijustdid backfill --all

# Explicitly approve full-history generation
npx whatijustdid backfill --all --yes

Before generation, the CLI reports how many selected commits are missing summaries and a worst-case input-token estimate. Ready commits are skipped, so interrupted runs resume without regenerating completed work. Add --force only when intentionally replacing existing summaries.

whatijustdid sync is reserved for hosted multi-device/team sync and currently uploads nothing.

Viewer and editing

npx whatijustdid preview
npx whatijustdid preview --port 4173
npx whatijustdid build
npx whatijustdid edit <commit-sha-or-prefix>
npx whatijustdid clear --yes

preview serves the bundled viewer with live reload and enables its local actions, including per-commit generation. edit changes a private SQLite summary. clear --yes permanently removes every local summary and rebuilds the viewer; it does not change Git history or the shared configuration.

Configuration

The tracked whatijustdid.json contains safe shared defaults:

{
  "projectName": "Jollof Rice",
  "agent": "codex",
  "model": null,
  "verbosity": "normal",
  "viewerLimit": 200,
  "generationLimit": 50,
  "maxDiffBytes": 80000,
  "timeoutMs": 20000,
  "showTokens": false,
  "projects": {
    "web": ["apps/web"],
    "worker": ["apps/worker"]
  }
}

projectName is the heading shown in the HTML viewer. Edit it to any non-empty name, then run npx whatijustdid build (or restart preview) to rebuild the viewer data. model: null lets the selected agent use its package default. verbosity controls summary detail: "concise" (600 tokens, 140 chars/change), "normal" (1200, 280), to "detailed" (2400, 560). showTokens (default false) — when true, the bundled viewer displays a per-commit token-count badge next to each summary entry showing the AI usage for that generation.

Put personal overrides in Git-private .git/whatijustdid/whatijustdid.local.json. Environment variables take precedence:

• WHATIJUSTDID_AGENT
• WHATIJUSTDID_DB_PATH for an advanced local database-path override

Credentials

Each agent normally reads its provider's standard env var (OPENAI_API_KEY, DEEPSEEK_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY). To avoid tracking which name goes with which agent, you can instead set one generic WHATIJUSTDID_AGENT_API_KEY — it's used as the key for whichever agent is currently configured, and it takes precedence if both are set.

Any of these can also live in a .env file at the repository root instead of your shell profile; it's loaded automatically and is gitignored by default, so it's never committed. A real exported shell variable still wins over the .env value.

# .env (gitignored)
WHATIJUSTDID_AGENT_API_KEY=sk-...

Agent-specific variables:

• Codex/OpenAI: OPENAI_API_KEY (or WHATIJUSTDID_AGENT_API_KEY), optional OPENAI_BASE_URL
• DeepSeek: DEEPSEEK_API_KEY (or WHATIJUSTDID_AGENT_API_KEY), optional DEEPSEEK_BASE_URL
• Claude: ANTHROPIC_API_KEY (or WHATIJUSTDID_AGENT_API_KEY), optional ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL
• Llama/Ollama: no key needed, optional OLLAMA_HOST

Supported agents

Set "agent" in whatijustdid.json (or WHATIJUSTDID_AGENT) to one of the values below. "model": null uses the listed default; set "model" (or WHATIJUSTDID_MODEL) to override it.

Agent	agent value	Credential	Default model	Example override
Codex / OpenAI	codex (alias: openai)	OPENAI_API_KEY or WHATIJUSTDID_AGENT_API_KEY	gpt-5.4-mini	"model": "gpt-5.4"
DeepSeek	deepseek	DEEPSEEK_API_KEY or WHATIJUSTDID_AGENT_API_KEY	deepseek-v4-flash	"model": "deepseek-v4"
Claude	claude	ANTHROPIC_API_KEY or WHATIJUSTDID_AGENT_API_KEY	claude-sonnet-5	"model": "claude-opus-4-8"
Llama / Ollama	llama	none (runs against local OLLAMA_HOST)	llama3.2	"model": "llama3.3"

Example whatijustdid.json pinned to DeepSeek's larger model:

{
  "agent": "deepseek",
  "model": "deepseek-v4"
}