Interactive picker

The picker is a dual-pane terminal UI for curating context before generation: a foldable file tree on the left, a live preview on the right, and a footer with the selection total, a budget bar, and scan progress.

Launch it with bare sift or sift pick [path]:

sift
sift pick ./src

The picker needs an interactive terminal. Bare sift shows help instead when stdin is not a terminal (for example, when piping). Use sift pick from a real terminal.

Layout

Tree (left) — navigate files and directories, expand/collapse folders, and toggle selection. Each row shows its mode (FULL/SIGS/SKIP) and token count.
Preview (right) — the highlighted file’s content with syntax highlighting and secret warnings where relevant.
Footer — the active style, visibility state, selection count and token total, a live budget bar, and the scanning progress line.

Press Tab to move keyboard focus between the tree and preview panes. When the preview has focus, j/k and the arrow keys scroll it instead of moving the cursor.

Keyboard reference

Key	Action
`j`/`k`, `Up`/`Down`	Move the cursor
`h`/`l`, `Left`/`Right`	Collapse / expand a directory
`Enter`	Expand a folder, or toggle a file’s selection
`E` / `C`	Expand all / collapse all
`.`	Toggle hidden files in the tree
`H`	Toggle Git-ignored files in the tree
`Tab`	Switch focus between the tree and preview panes

Selection and context density

Key	Action
`Space`	Select / deselect the current file or folder
`m`	Cycle a file’s mode: `FULL` → `SIGS` → `SKIP`
`s`	Smart-select files by Git history and budget
`a`	Select all / deselect all
`d`	Open the incremental delta modal
`t`	Open the color-theme selector
`p`	Open the prompt / task-directive builder

Generation and actions

Key	Action
`g`	Generate the output document (stay in the picker)
`y`	Copy the selection to the clipboard
`/`	Fuzzy path search (filter the tree)
`PgUp`/`PgDn`, `[`/`]`	Scroll the preview pane
`J` / `K`	Scroll the preview one line at a time
`?`	Toggle the in-app help overlay
`q` / `Esc`	Exit (`Esc` first clears an active filter)
`r`	Rescan the tree (refresh files and git history)

Selecting files and directories

Selecting a directory applies the selection to all its children.
A directory’s checkbox reflects the aggregate state of its children.
Select a useful subset by hand, press a for everything, or press s for a Git-informed smart selection.

Modes (context density)

Each file balances detail against token cost:

FULL — the file’s full content is included.
SIGS — a signature-only summary keeps declarations, imports, and useful comments while dropping implementation bodies.
SKIP — the file is excluded from the output.

Press m on a selected file to cycle its mode. The picker can mix modes freely; the footer’s token tally and budget bar update live.

Smart select

s chooses a selection automatically from Git history and commit size. Working tree edits and small, focused commits favor FULL; large bulk commits favor SIGS. The result is shaped by your current --budget.

Filtering and visibility

Press / to fuzzy-filter the tree by path. Type to narrow, Enter to commit, Esc (or q) to clear the filter.
. reveals hidden (dotfile) entries and H reveals Git-ignored entries. These are display toggles inside the picker; what ends up in the output depends on your selection. Hidden and Git-ignored files are shown muted (dimmed) so they stand out from tracked files; hovering or selecting one restores full emphasis so it stays easy to work with.

Task prompts

Press p to open the directive builder. It offers presets — such as code review, refactoring, bug investigation, unit tests, and architecture explanation — plus a custom mode (Tab or c) for free-form instructions. The chosen prompt is prepended to generated or copied output.

Color themes

Press t to open the theme selector. Presets include Catppuccin Mocha, Tokyo Night, Dracula, Gruvbox Dark, Nord, Rose Pine, and the default/classic theme. Your selection applies immediately and is saved for future sessions. The theme also recolors preview syntax highlighting to match, so keywords, strings, and comments follow the same palette as the rest of the picker.

If your terminal does not show the default Nerd Font glyphs, run with --no-nerd-fonts to use plain ASCII icons.

Incremental deltas from the picker

Press d to open the delta modal. It lets you choose the comparison range (by checking/unchecking commits), the strategy (FULL content vs a raw --patch stack), and whether to generate a document or copy it. See Incremental deltas.

Generating and copying

g renders the current selection to the configured output destination (default codebase.md) without leaving the picker, so you can keep tweaking.
y copies the rendered selection to the clipboard.

Both include the active task prompt and apply secret redaction.