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Getting started

Get Lusca, open a repository, and start reviewing.

Lusca is a fast, native Git client. Review changes, stage files, hunks or single lines, commit, browse history, and work with branches, merges, stashes and remotes, all from the keyboard if you like. When a change is in an image, it shows you what actually changed: side by side, with a swipe, as an onion skin, or with the changed pixels lit up. Git LFS is built in.

Install

Lusca is in pre-release. Sign up for early access and we’ll email you a download link when it’s ready. It runs on macOS 15 or newer on Apple Silicon.

It installs Lusca.app and a lusca command for your terminal. Lusca uses the Git and Git LFS you already have; if it can’t find them, Settings › Git says what to install.

Open a repository

From a Git project in your terminal:

lusca .

With no path, Lusca reopens the last repository you used. You can also choose where to start:

lusca . --base origin/develop   # review your branch like a pull request
lusca . --working               # review uncommitted changes
lusca . --commit HEAD~1         # review a single commit

The path is opened as soon as the app starts, so . opens the current project and a relative or absolute path opens that folder. Choose Open Repository… (⌘O) to switch projects; click the repository’s name at the top left to switch to one you’ve opened recently.

Clone Repository… (⌘⇧O), in the File menu, the repository menu and the welcome screen, asks for a URL and clones into a folder named after the repository, beside the open one unless you choose another. The clone can be cancelled, leaves nothing behind if it fails, and opens when it’s done. New Repository… (⌘N) makes a folder with an empty repository on main (or your init.defaultBranch), and won’t make one inside another repository.

Find your way around

The rail on the left names each page:

Page Shortcut What it’s for
Review ⌘1 Look through changes — uncommitted, a branch’s or a commit’s — and mark them reviewed
Commit ⌘2 Stage files, hunks or lines, and commit
History ⌘3 The commit graph, search, file history and blame
Branches ⌘4 Branches, tags and stashes; switch, merge and browse
Notes ⌘5 Every review note you’ve left, ready to copy into a pull request

Press ⌘K for the command palette, which finds any action, branch, file or recent commit, and ? for every keyboard shortcut.

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