TreeMapper

Export your codebase for AI/LLM context in one command.

pipx install treemapper          # install
treemapper . -o context.yaml    # paste into ChatGPT/Claude

Why TreeMapper?

Unlike tree or find, TreeMapper exports structure + file contents in a format optimized for fast comprehension:

name: myproject
type: directory
children:
  - name: main.py
    type: file
    content: |
      def hello():
          print("Hello, World!")
  - name: utils/
    type: directory
    children:
      - name: helpers.py
        type: file
        content: |
          def add(a, b):
              return a + b

Feature	tree	repomix	TreeMapper
File contents	✗	✓	✓
Token counting	✗	✓	✓
Smart diff context	✗	✗	✓
Multiple output formats	✗	limited	YAML/JSON/MD/txt
Python API	✗	✗	✓
100% local / offline	✓	✓	✓

Installation

pipx install treemapper                    # recommended: isolated, no venv needed
pip install treemapper                     # or with pip
pip install 'treemapper[tree-sitter]'      # + AST parsing for smarter diff context

Standalone binary (no Python required): download from the releases page.

Diff context mode works out of the box. Adding [tree-sitter] enables AST-level parsing for more accurate context selection across 10 languages.

Usage

treemapper                                  # current dir, YAML to stdout
treemapper .                                # YAML to stdout + token count
treemapper . -o tree.yaml                   # save to file
treemapper . --save                         # save to tree.yaml (default name)
treemapper . -o -                           # explicit stdout
treemapper . -f json                        # JSON format
treemapper . -f txt                         # plain text with indentation
treemapper . -f md                          # Markdown with fenced code blocks
treemapper . --no-content                   # structure only, no file contents
treemapper . --max-depth 3                  # limit depth (0=root only)
treemapper . --max-file-bytes 10000         # skip files > 10KB (default: 10 MB)
treemapper . --no-file-size-limit           # include all files regardless of size
treemapper . -i custom.ignore               # custom ignore patterns
treemapper . -w whitelist                   # include-only filter
treemapper . --no-default-ignores           # disable built-in ignore patterns
treemapper . --log-level info               # log level (default: error)
treemapper . -c                             # copy to clipboard
treemapper . -c -o tree.yaml                # clipboard + save to file
treemapper -v                               # show version

# diff context mode (requires git repo):
treemapper . --diff HEAD~1                  # context for last commit
treemapper . --diff main..feature           # context for feature branch
treemapper . --diff HEAD~1 --budget 30000   # limit diff context to ~30k tokens
treemapper . --diff HEAD~1 --full           # all changed code, no smart selection
treemapper . --diff HEAD~1 -c               # diff context to clipboard

Diff Context Mode

Paper: Context-Selection for Git Diff (Zenodo, 2026)

Smart context selection for git diffs — automatically finds the minimal set of code fragments needed to understand a change:

treemapper . --diff HEAD~1..HEAD      # recent changes
treemapper . --diff main..feature     # feature branch
treemapper . --diff HEAD~1 --budget 30000  # limit tokens
treemapper . --diff HEAD~1 --full     # all changed code

Uses graph-based relevance propagation (Personalized PageRank) to select the most important context. Output size is controlled by algorithm convergence (τ-stopping) by default, or an explicit --budget token limit. Understands imports, type references, config dependencies, and co-change patterns across 15+ programming languages.

Output format:

name: myproject
type: diff_context
fragment_count: 5
fragments:
  - path: src/main.py
    lines: "10-25"
    kind: function
    symbol: process_data
    content: |
      def process_data(items):
          ...

Flag	Default	Description
--budget	none	Token limit (convergence-based by default)
--alpha	0.60	PPR damping factor
--tau	0.08	Stopping threshold
--full	false	Include all changed code

Token Counting

Token count and size are always displayed on stderr:

12,847 tokens (o200k_base), 52.3 KB

For large outputs (>1MB), approximate counts with ~ prefix:

~125,000 tokens (o200k_base), 5.2 MB

Uses tiktoken with o200k_base encoding (GPT-4o tokenizer).

Clipboard Support

Copy output directly to clipboard with -c or --copy:

treemapper . -c                       # copy (no stdout)
treemapper . -c -o tree.yaml          # copy + save to file

System Requirements:

• macOS: pbcopy (pre-installed)
• Windows: clip (pre-installed)
• Linux (Wayland): wl-copy
• Linux (X11): xclip or xsel

Python API

from treemapper import map_directory
from treemapper import to_yaml, to_json, to_text, to_markdown

tree = map_directory(
    path,                     # directory path
    max_depth=None,           # limit traversal depth
    no_content=False,         # exclude file contents
    max_file_bytes=None,      # skip large files
    ignore_file=None,         # custom ignore file
    no_default_ignores=False, # disable default ignores
    whitelist_file=None,      # include-only filter
)

yaml_str = to_yaml(tree)
json_str = to_json(tree)
text_str = to_text(tree)
md_str = to_markdown(tree)

# Diff context mode
from treemapper import build_diff_context

ctx = build_diff_context(
    root_dir,                 # Path to repository root
    diff_range,               # e.g. "HEAD~1..HEAD", "main..feature"
    budget_tokens=None,       # token limit (None = convergence-based)
    alpha=0.6,                # PPR damping factor
    tau=0.08,                 # stopping threshold
    full=False,               # skip smart selection
)
yaml_str = to_yaml(ctx)

Ignore Patterns

Respects .gitignore and .treemapper/ignore automatically. Use --no-default-ignores to disable built-in patterns (.gitignore and .treemapper/ignore still apply).

• Hierarchical: nested ignore files at each directory level
• Negation patterns: !important.log un-ignores a file
• Anchored patterns: /root_only.txt matches only in root
• Output file is always auto-ignored

Auto-discovered files:

• .treemapper/ignore — TreeMapper-specific ignore patterns
• .treemapper/whitelist — Include-only filter (only matched files included)

Content Placeholders

• <file too large: N bytes> — exceeds --max-file-bytes
• <binary file: N bytes> — binary file detected
• <unreadable content: not utf-8> — not valid UTF-8
• <unreadable content> — permission denied or I/O error

License

Apache 2.0