GitCanvas

Desktop app to visually organize your local git repositories on freeform canvases. Group them by purpose, annotate branches with the domains and smart contracts they ship, and export the result as PNG or SVG.

Built with Electron + React + React Flow + SQLite. pnpm monorepo. macOS-first.

Caution

GitCanvas is a hobby project built for my own workflow. It's not actively supported, may contain bugs or break in unexpected ways, and there is no guarantee of stability, data safety, or future maintenance. If you decide to try it, you do so entirely at your own discretion — back up anything important first.

Features

• Boards — multiple canvases, each containing repos, sticky notes, and colored group containers
• Local git only — discover individual folders or recursively scan a parent directory; no cloud, no accounts
• Live status — current branch, dirty flag, ahead/behind, last commit relative time per repo; refreshed on window focus
• Per-repo branches — the details panel lists every local branch with its tracking info, and lets you scope annotations to a specific branch
• Repo lists — org-level groupings of repos in the sidebar; link a board to a list to keep its repo nodes in sync
• Annotations — attach domains (example.com, with environment label) and smart contracts (chain + address + name) to a repo, optionally scoped to a specific branch — designed for tracking deployments across web2 and web3 stacks
• Configurable chains — manage the EVM chain list (name, address pattern, explorer URL template) from Settings
• Drag-into-group — visual drop targets when nesting repos/notes into groups
• Undo / redo — per-board history covering creates, deletes, moves, resizes, re-parenting, group layout / color changes, and inline edits; ⌘Z / ⌘⇧Z, scoped to the active board, defers to native text undo while editing notes
• Export — render the entire board as a PNG or SVG image
• SQLite backups — create, restore, and delete database snapshots from the Settings dialog

Requirements

• Node.js ≥ 20.10 (.nvmrc pinned to 20.18.0)
• pnpm ≥ 10
• macOS (v1 target — Windows/Linux later)
• git available on PATH

Workspace layout

apps/
  desktop/       Electron app (main + preload + renderer)
packages/
  shared/        Renderer-safe types + IPC contract (single source of truth)
  tsconfig/      Shared TypeScript presets

Getting started

pnpm install
pnpm dev          # launch the Electron app with HMR
pnpm typecheck    # run TS across all workspaces
pnpm lint
pnpm build        # build all workspaces

Packaging

pnpm --filter @gitcanvas/desktop dist:dir   # produces an unpacked .app under release/
pnpm --filter @gitcanvas/desktop dist       # produces a signed-able DMG

Keyboard shortcuts

• ⌘B — Toggle sidebar
• ⌘Z — Undo last board change (per active board)
• ⌘⇧Z — Redo
• Backspace / Delete — Delete selected node(s) on the canvas

Database

Local SQLite at ~/Library/Application Support/GitCanvas/gitcanvas.db. Schema is managed via Drizzle migrations in apps/desktop/src/main/db/migrations. Migrations run on startup with FK enforcement temporarily disabled — see client.ts for details.

Backups are written to ~/Documents/GitCanvas/backups/ and managed via the Settings dialog.