git citool

A graphical commit composer. Old, still ships.

🎯 What & why

Tk-based GUI for composing commits — diff view, hunk staging, message editor in one window. Old-school but still ships with Git.

🧠 Mental model

citool is a thin Tk wrapper around the same plumbing porcelain uses (update-index, write-tree, commit-tree). The GUI pane is just a different surface for the same operations — when you click 'Commit,' the same hook runs as git commit.

🛠️ Synopsis

git citool [<options>]

🎚️ Switches & options

Flag	What it does
`--amend`	Open in amend mode for the previous commit.

💡 Use cases

Visual hunk staging without learning git add -p.
Composing a careful commit message in a real editor window.

🧪 Examples

Launch citool.

$ git citool

🎓 Recommendations

If you're going to use a GUI for commits, modern alternatives (Magit, Fork, GitKraken, VS Code) are nicer. Citool exists; it's not the recommended tool today.

🪤 Common pitfalls

Requires Tk/Tcl — won't launch on minimal server installs.
UI is dated. That's the only reason to look elsewhere.

🔗 Related modules

📝 Quiz

Hit each option, then Check answers. Score is recorded; Next is always open.