{"slug": "show-hn-twain-a-diff-viewer-like-meld-but-for-the-age-of-ai", "title": "Show HN: Twain, a diff viewer like Meld, but for the age of AI", "summary": "Developer andunieee released Twain, a GTK 4 diff viewer built as a Meld alternative for reviewing AI-generated code changes, available as a binary, Flatpak bundle, or via `cargo install --git https://github.com/andunieee/twain`. Twain shows all files from a Git diff sequentially in one view with a fast file tree, tree-sitter-based syntax highlighting, full-file or changed-only display with granular revealing of unchanged parts, and full-diff search, and it lets users comment on sets of changes and lines that AI agents can read and extend from a CLI via `twain comment --help`. Unlike Meld, Twain lacks merge, three-way comparisons, support for other version control systems, and direct file editing.", "body_md": "A diff viewer for people who love Meld, but wanted it to be slightly different.\n\nThings that are like Meld:\n\n- intuitive and nice view of what changed to what, what was removed from where and added where;\n- scrolling minimaps of changes;\n- git support;\n- fast.\n\nThings we have that Meld doesn't:\n\n- all files from a Git diff shown in the same view, sequentially;\n- a file tree on the side, super fast;\n- show either the full files or only the parts that changed, with granular revealing of the unchanged parts;\n- tree-sitter-based syntax highlighting;\n- the ability to comment on sets of changes and lines, and AIs can read these comments and add more from a CLI, like Hunk;\n- the ability to search through the entire set of modified files.\n\nThins Meld has that we don't:\n\n- merge;\n- three-way comparisons;\n- support for other version control systems;\n- ability to edit the files directly.\n\nRun `twain` in your project's directory. It can also compare other Git revisions, but that doesn't matter much for now.\n\nSelect lines and press `C` or right-click the mouse to leave a comment on them.\n\nTell your AI agent to look into `twain comment --help` so it can participate.\n\nDownload a binary or a Flatpak bundle from the [latest release](https://github.com/andunieee/twain/releases/latest) or build from source (needs GTK 4, GtkSourceView 5 and libadwaita):\n\n```\ncargo install --git https://github.com/andunieee/twain\n```\n\n", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-twain-a-diff-viewer-like-meld-but-for-the-age-of-ai", "canonical_source": "https://github.com/andunieee/twain", "published_at": "2026-10-17 02:03:40+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-17 02:26:45.980739+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["developer-tools", "ai-agents", "ai-tools"], "entities": ["Twain", "Meld", "andunieee", "Git", "GTK 4", "GtkSourceView 5", "libadwaita", "Hunk"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-twain-a-diff-viewer-like-meld-but-for-the-age-of-ai", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-twain-a-diff-viewer-like-meld-but-for-the-age-of-ai.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-twain-a-diff-viewer-like-meld-but-for-the-age-of-ai.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-twain-a-diff-viewer-like-meld-but-for-the-age-of-ai.jsonld"}}