CLI Reference

diffle reviews whichever git repo you run it from. Each command prints a http://localhost:<port> URL and opens it in your browser — the diff renders there, not in the terminal.

Getting help

diffle --help prints an overview with common tasks and examples. Every command also takes --help (or -h) for its own options, examples, and related commands:

diffle update --help
diffle mcp --help
diffle setup -h

Commands

diffle

Review the working tree against HEAD, including untracked files.

diffle

diffle staged

Review staged changes only.

diffle staged

diffle <branch>

Review the current branch against the named branch, using a PR-style three-dot comparison.

diffle main

diffle <ref1>..<ref2>

Review a commit range.

diffle v0.1.0..HEAD

diffle browse [path]

Review the whole codebase, optionally scoped to a path.

diffle browse
diffle browse src/server

diffle mcp serve

Run the local MCP server for agent integrations. See MCP tools.

diffle mcp serve

diffle mcp list

List running diffle MCP servers (pid and binary path).

diffle mcp list

diffle mcp restart [--yes]

Stop every running diffle MCP server so your agent relaunches it, e.g. on the new binary after an update. Agents don’t respawn a stopped stdio server by themselves: in Claude Code, reconnect it from /mcp or start a new session. It refuses while a review session is live, since a review can be hosted inside an MCP server; stale sessions don’t block it. --yes skips the confirmation.

diffle mcp restart
diffle mcp restart --yes

diffle setup [--remove] [--agents <id,id>] [--yes]

Wire diffle into your coding agents. It detects installed agents (binary on PATH or config directory present), shows a checkbox list (↑↓ move, space select, a all, enter confirm) with detected agents first and pre-checked, prints every command and file it will touch, and asks Proceed? [y/N] before applying. It’s idempotent: re-running reports unchanged. See Agent feedback.

--remove reverses the setup. Its list starts with every agent diffle is currently set up in, tagged (set up) and pre-checked, so pressing enter removes them all; unchecking one leaves it set up and exits non-zero (so the uninstaller keeps the binary). --agents selects agents non-interactively and --yes skips the confirmation. Without a terminal and without --agents, it exits 1 with a hint.

diffle setup
diffle setup --agents claude,codex --yes
diffle setup --remove

Agent ids: claude, codex, cursor, gemini, vscode, windsurf, opencode, zed, copilot.

diffle hook stop --agent <codex|claude-code>

Completion-hook entry used by the agent integrations.

diffle hook stop --agent codex
diffle hook stop --agent claude-code

diffle sessions

List running diffle sessions with their host, port, age, and live/stale status.

diffle sessions

diffle cleanup [--yes] [--all]

Stop stale sessions and finished reviews. --yes skips the confirmation; --all also stops active sessions.

diffle cleanup
diffle cleanup --yes
diffle cleanup --all --yes

diffle update [--check]

Download and install the latest release. It verifies the download’s SHA-256 and refuses when a package manager owns the install. After installing, it stops MCP servers still running the old binary (the same as diffle mcp restart) as long as no review session is live; otherwise it tells you to run diffle mcp restart later. It ends with a numbered list of the next steps that apply to you: restart any open review (it still runs the old version), reconnect your agents if their MCP servers were stopped (Claude Code: /mcp → reconnect, or a new session), run diffle mcp restart once live reviews finish if they blocked it, and confirm with diffle --version in a new shell. On Windows a copy of the old binary still held by a running MCP server can’t be deleted, so it is retired under a unique name and cleaned up by a later update. --check only reports whether a newer release exists and never downloads; it also works in a source checkout. See Configuration for the full update behavior.

diffle update
diffle update --check

An installed binary also announces a newer release in one line when a review launches, checking GitHub at most once a day. Set DIFFLE_NO_UPDATE_CHECK=1 to silence it (it’s also skipped when CI is set).

diffle doctor [--fix] [--yes]

Check the Claude Code plugin install for stale loupe-review leftovers and report what to repair. It also reports whether a newer release is published. --fix runs the repair commands through the claude CLI; --yes skips the confirmation. See Migrating from loupe.

diffle doctor
diffle doctor --fix

Options

flag	meaning
-p, --port <n>	serve on a fixed port (default: any free port)
--no-open	don’t open the browser automatically
--review-id <id>	open an existing durable Review Record
-v, --version	print the installed version
--license	print the bundled MIT license notice
-h, --help	show help

The loupe alias

The deprecated loupe command is an alias for diffle during the compatibility window. See Migrating from loupe.