MIT · single Go binary · local-first

Sift the repo.
Keep the signal.

sift walks a project directory, ranks files by git relevance, and renders one LLM-ready context document. Token budgeting, secret redaction, and signature-only compression are built in.

Install sift Read the docs

Single Go binary, no account or server round-trip. Also on Homebrew, Scoop, and as prebuilt binaries. Source on GitHub.

your-project/214 files

node_modules/lodash/index.js

vendor/github.com/pkg/errors/errors.go

.git/objects/3f/91a2…

dist/bundle.min.js

package-lock.json

internal/api/handler.go

internal/api/router.go

coverage/lcov.info

README.md

testdata/fixture_003.json

+ 204 more

codebase.md42 files · 58,940 tok

internal/api/handler.goFULL

internal/api/router.goFULL

internal/api/middleware.goSIGS

cmd/api/main.goFULL

internal/store/postgres.goSIGS

README.mdFULL

internal/store/query.goSIGS

go.modFULL

+ 34 more, budget-fit

internal/legacy/parser.goSKIP (budget)

Noise stays gray and drops out. Everything else gets ranked, then rendered full or as signatures until the budget runs out.

Context curation is the bottleneck

Three ways teams feed code to models today, and why each breaks down.

Raw concatenation doesn't rank. Piping every file into a prompt ships vendored code, lockfiles, build output, and secrets, unranked and over budget.

A cloud service sees your code. Hosted context tools charge per seat and upload your repository. sift is a local MIT-licensed binary. Nothing leaves your machine.

Hand-picking doesn't scale. Choosing files by hand stops working past a dozen. Git-relevance ranking re-curates on every run, for free.

One document, ranked and trimmed to fit

Two ideas do the heavy lifting. Four more handle the details.

Git-relevance ranking.

Modified files first, then recent diffs, then recent commits, weighted with churn and import fan-in, so the files you actually touched lead the document.

Signature compression.

--mode signatures keeps declarations and doc comments via tree-sitter and drops function bodies. The full structure at a fraction of the tokens.

Token budgets.

Set --budget and sift keeps the highest-priority files inside your model's context window.

Secret redaction.

AWS, GitHub, Slack, Google, and Stripe keys are redacted before anything renders. On by default.

Interactive picker.

A dual-pane TUI with per-file FULL/SIGS/SKIP modes, smart-select, and task prompts.

Incremental deltas.

sift delta renders only what changed since your last dump, as full files or a raw patch.

TRY IT

Drag the budget. Watch the document reshape.

An illustrative simulation of how sift fills a token budget by rank.

budget: 12,000 tokused: 0 tok

Rank	File	Mode	Tokens
01	internal/api/handler.go
02	internal/api/router.go
03	cmd/api/main.go
04	internal/api/middleware.go
05	internal/store/postgres.go
06	README.md
07	internal/store/query.go
08	internal/legacy/parser.go
09	go.mod
10	internal/config/load.go

Illustrative. Real token counts depend on your files and model.

Same file. A fraction of the tokens.

// Rank orders files by git relevance, highest first.
func Rank(files []File, opts Options) []File {
	scores := make(map[string]float64, len(files))
	for _, f := range files {
		scores[f.Path] = score(f, opts)
	}
	sort.SliceStable(files, func(i, j int) bool {
		return scores[files[i].Path] > scores[files[j].Path]
	})
	return files
}

11 lines

Eight ways to generate the document

Run sift --help or sift <command> --help for the full flag list.

Command	What it does
`sift`	Launch the interactive picker
`sift dump [path]`	Render every eligible file in the tree
`sift pick [path]`	Select files interactively, then render
`sift select [path]`	Auto-select the most useful files and render them
`sift diff [ref]`	Render only files changed relative to a git ref
`sift delta [path]`	Render only changes since the last recorded dump
`sift watch [path]`	Re-render the document whenever files change
`sift serve`	Local, password-locked web UI (alternative to the terminal picker)

A picker built for the keyboard

Mark files FULL, SIGS, or SKIP and watch the token total move.

Illustrative layout.

Built for agents too

sift ships an MCP server so coding agents can request exactly the context they need, over stdio.

pack_context

Pack ranked, budgeted context for a path.

pack_diff

Pack only files changed relative to a git ref.

list_tree

List the project tree the agent can choose from.

MCP server docs →

Install in one line

macOS and Linux:

curl -fsSL https://bethropolis.github.io/sift/install.sh | sh

Homebrew, Scoop, go install, and building from source are on the install page.

Sift the repo.Keep the signal.