peek_tree

A modern file tree viewer with preview capabilities, inspired by the classic tree command but with additional features for developers and system administrators.

Designed mainly to create coding related prompts for generative models that do not natively support indexing context files within an ide, such as OpenAI's GPT.

Features

• 🌲 Traditional tree-style directory visualization
• 👀 File content preview (-p)
• 📂 Directory-only view (-d)
• 🔍 Pattern-based exclusion (-I)
• 🎨 Colorized output (-C)
• 📊 Detailed file information (size, permissions, dates)
• 🔗 Stay on filesystem (-x)
• 📝 Full file preview support (--full-preview)
• 📤 Output to file (-o)

Installation

Prerequisites

• C compiler (clang or gcc)
• make
• POSIX-compliant system

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/aymanhki/peek_tree.git
cd peek_tree/src
make

The compiled binary will be available as peek_tree in the src directory.

Usage

peek_tree [OPTIONS] [PATH]

Basic Examples

# View current directory
peek_tree

# View specific directory with 2 levels depth
peek_tree -l 2 /path/to/directory

# Show hidden files
peek_tree -a

# Show file previews
peek_tree -p

# Show file previews with custom number of lines
peek_tree -p 5

# Exclude specific patterns
peek_tree -I "node_modules,.git,*.txt"

Options

Display Options

• -l N - Limit tree depth to N levels
• -p [N] - Show preview with N (optional) lines (default: 3)
• -f - Show full path prefix for each entry
• -a - Show hidden files and directories
• -d - List directories only
• -i - Ignore case when sorting
• -x - Stay on current filesystem
• -C - Force colorization on
• -n - Force colorization off
• -k - Indent file preview
• -j - Visually link previews with tree root

File Information

• -s - Show file sizes
• -u - Show file owner
• -g - Show file group
• -D - Show modification date
• --inodes - Show inode numbers
• --device - Show device numbers
• -F - Append type indicators

Sorting and Filtering

• -r - Reverse sort
• --dirsfirst - List directories before files
• -I "PATTERN,..." - Exclude files/dirs matching patterns

Output Control

• --noreport - Omit final report
• --full-preview - Show full file content
• -o FILE - Output to file

Help and Version

• -h - Show help message
• --version - Show version information

Environment Variables

• NO_COLOR - If set, disables color output regardless of other options

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

License

MIT License

Author

aymanhki