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Sprout

AI context (--ai)

Terminal window
sprout --ai | pbcopy            # macOS
sprout --ai | xclip -sel c      # Linux
sprout --ai --budget 800        # a smaller map

--ai prints a plain-text overview of the project for a prompt or an agent. From top to bottom:

  • Summary: the README’s first prose line
  • stack and languages, from manifests and file counts
  • git: the branch, uncommitted changes, and the 5 most-changed files in the last 90 days
  • entry points and config (Dockerfiles, CI workflows, compose files, tsconfig.json and similar)
  • structure: one line per folder, with its files inline
  • key files: the files the rest of the code uses most, with their function and type signatures
## key files (most used first)
web/src/lib/types.ts (used by 5): export interface Trail; export interface Report; export type Units
web/src/lib/api.ts (used by 4): export async function getTrail(id: string): Promise<Trail>; …
internal/trails/store.go (used by 3): type Store struct; func NewStore(db *sql.DB) *Store; …

How the budget works

Section titled “How the budget works”

--budget is an approximate token count (default 2000, estimated at about 4 bytes per token).

  1. The structure gets three fifths of the budget. Every top-level folder starts as a one-line summary, like internal/ (84 files, mostly .go).
  2. Folders then open breadth-first while the map still fits. examples/, test/, tests/, testdata/, fixtures/, vendor/ and third_party/ open last, and a folder too big to open doesn’t block smaller ones.
  3. Key files get the rest of the budget, including anything the structure didn’t use.

How key files are ranked

Section titled “How key files are ranked”

Sprout reads source files, extracts top-level declarations with their signatures, and resolves local imports. Files are ranked by how many other files import or reference them. Tests don’t count, and aren’t read for this at all.

Language Declarations References
Go Go’s own parser: exported names first, then unexported Module imports, and uses of names from the same package
TypeScript, JavaScript exported functions, classes, types, interfaces, enums and constants Relative import, export … from, require and import(). ./x.js finds x.ts
Python Top-level def and class, not _private Relative, dotted and src/ imports, including from . import a, b
Rust pub items mod x; and use crate::…
Java, Kotlin Public types and top-level declarations import under any source root

Files over 512 KB and binaries are skipped.