jk manual

Inspect changes and compare content

Review the graph, revision details, diffs, file changes, and a change's evolution.

In an existing jj repository, use the log to choose @ or another visible revision, Enter to read its details, and d to review its content. Backspace returns to your previous place in the preceding view. In ordinary rendered inspection output, Esc quits jk; dialogs and search prompts handle it separately.

Review revision details and status

From the log, press Enter on the change to see jj’s description and patch. To start directly with one or several revisions, use:

jk show @
jk show @ @-

Press s from the log to see the working-copy status. The cursor does not change which workspace status describes. A startup status command can narrow the displayed files:

jk status
jk status 'glob:src/**'

Status filesets filter the report; they do not select content for a later squash or restore. Compare status with d on @ when you need to see the content behind a changed filename.

In rendered inspection views, j/k, Page Up/Down, and g/G move through the output. / opens search; enter text and press Enter, then use n/N to visit matches. Esc closes the search prompt. r reloads the same query.

Compare one change or two trees

From the log, d compares the selected change with its parent content. These startup forms make the comparison explicit:

jk diff
jk diff -r @-
jk diff @-
jk diff --from @- --to @

Bare jk diff uses @. The positional revision is a compatibility form of -r. A two-tree comparison requires both --from and --to; it cannot be combined with a revision operand. The comparison displays what differs between the trees, which can differ from a change’s own patch when the two revisions are on different branches.

The diff title identifies the revision or from/to pair. For file navigation and folding, press V and choose Color words:

Press f to choose a file from the file list; move with the arrows and press Enter.
Use [ and ] to move between files.
Press h to fold the current file or l to unfold it.
Use Ctrl-Left or Ctrl-Right to fold or unfold all files, and </> to scroll horizontally.
Search with /, Enter, then n/N when the patch is too large to read linearly.

Folding and file selection change only the display. They do not stage files or narrow a mutation. Esc closes the file list without changing the chosen file.

Change the diff format

Press V in a diff and choose its format. The query’s revision or from/to operands stay the same. The startup flags provide the same formats; choose one flag at a time.

Format	Startup option	Use it to see
Patch	No format flag	The patch using jj’s configured default rendering.
Stat	`--stat`	The amount of changed content per file.
Summary	`--summary`	Added, modified, and removed paths.
Types	`--types`	File types before and after the change.
Name only	`--name-only`	Changed paths without patch content.
Git	`--git`	A Git-format patch.
Color words	`--color-words`	Word-oriented changed content.

For example, jk diff --from @- --to @ --stat summarizes that same comparison. File navigation currently recognizes Color words headers. Git-format patches can display correctly while the file picker says “No files”; file jumps and folding are unavailable for that format. Select Color words to use file controls. Patch depends on jj’s configured rendering.

The advertised {/} hunk jumps and -/+ hunk folding do not work on ordinary Color words or Git output: the parser requires both Color words file headers and Git-style hunk headers in the same output. Use scrolling or search to review the content within a file. These are tracked as a format-navigation defect.

Native diff startup does not accept fileset operands; use a captured :diff -r @ 'glob:src/**' query for filtered output.

Follow a change through rewrites

Select the change in the log and press v. The evolution log shows earlier versions of that change, which is useful after describe, rebase, squash, or another rewrite. This is the history of a change’s versions; Operation Log records repository operations.

Use the displayed commit IDs to identify versions. To compare their patches, run interdiff --from OLD --to NEW in command mode, replacing OLD and NEW with the exact revisions you inspected. The result uses captured output with search and return controls; jk has no native interdiff picker.

Verify the query and handle failures

Check the title and C history record if the output describes the wrong revision or workspace. Cancel a selector with Esc; inspection does not need an undo. Ordinary jj inspection can snapshot working-copy edits, so operation history may record that snapshot.

A missing or ambiguous revision, invalid template, or invalid fileset is reported by jj. Read the retained diagnostics, correct the query, and retry. From captured command output, e reopens the input. For native startup operands, quit and restart with the corrected arguments. If another process rewrote the graph, refresh before choosing a new mutation target.