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Scan your directory tree. Feed it to an LLM. Ship faster.

---

treesnake scans a directory tree and exports its structure and file contents in formats optimized for humans, LLMs, or machines. Use it to instantly copy your entire codebase into a prompt, save it to a file, or pipe it wherever you need.

Features

• Three output formats — human-readable tree, LLM-optimized text, or JSON
• Three output destinations — stdout, file, or clipboard
• Flexible filtering — exclude dirs, files, or just their content via patterns, globs, or regex
• Config file support — store your settings in .env, .yml, .toml, or .json
• Cross-platform — Windows, macOS, Linux
• Single binary — ships as a standalone .exe / binary, no Python required

Installation

Download binary (recommended)

Grab the latest binary for your platform from Releases:

Platform	File
Windows	treesnake.exe
macOS	treesnake-macos
Linux	treesnake-linux

From source

git clone https://github.com/yourname/treesnake
cd treesnake
pip install -e .

Quick start

# Scan current directory and print to console
treesnake scan .

# Copy your codebase to clipboard for an LLM prompt
treesnake scan . --fmt llm --output clipboard

# Save to file
treesnake scan . --fmt llm --output file --out-file context.txt

Commands

scan

Scan a directory and output its structure.

treesnake scan [PATH] [OPTIONS]

Option	Short	Description
--config PATH	-c	Path to a config file. Overrides inline options.
--fmt	-f	Output format: default, llm, json
--output	-o	Destination: stdout, file, clipboard
--out-file PATH		Output file path (required when --output=file)
--exclude-dir	-ed	Exclude a directory entirely. Repeatable.
--exclude-file	-ef	Exclude a file entirely. Repeatable.
--no-content-dir	-ncd	Include directory name but not its contents. Repeatable.
--no-content-file	-ncf	Include file name but not its contents. Repeatable.

Output formats:

• default — indented tree with file sizes, human-readable
• llm — token-efficient format with file paths as headers, ideal for LLM context
• json — structured JSON, useful for piping into other tools

Filtering patterns:

Patterns support exact names, globs, and regex:

# Exact match
--exclude-dir .git

# Glob
--exclude-file "*.pyc"

# Regex (prefix with re: or regex:)
--exclude-file "re:^\\..*"   # all hidden files

Multiple values can be passed in a single option using spaces:

--exclude-file "*.pyc *.exe .env"
--exclude-dir ".git venv __pycache__"

Examples:

# Minimal scan with inline filters
treesnake scan . \
  --exclude-dir ".git venv __pycache__" \
  --exclude-file "*.pyc .env poetry.lock" \
  --fmt llm \
  --output clipboard

# Scan a specific path, save to file
treesnake scan ./src \
  --fmt llm \
  --output file \
  --out-file context.txt

# Use a config file, override format from CLI
treesnake scan . --config treesnake.toml --fmt json

---

init

Create a default config file in the given directory.

treesnake init [PATH] [OPTIONS]

Option	Short	Description
--fmt	-f	Config format: env, json, yaml, toml (default: env)

treesnake init .                  # creates .env.treesnake
treesnake init . --fmt toml       # creates treesnake.toml
treesnake init ./myproject --fmt yaml

---

version

Print the current version.

treesnake version
# treesnake 1.0.0

---

art

Print the treesnake ASCII art.

treesnake art

Config file

Run treesnake init . --fmt toml to generate a config file, then edit it:

mode = "--llm"
output = "--file"
out_file = "context.txt"

[config]
exclude_dirs = [".git", "venv", "__pycache__", "dist", "build"]
exclude_files = [".env", "*.pyc", "poetry.lock", "*.exe"]
exclude_content_dirs = []
exclude_content_files = ["*.log", "*.lock"]

All fields in the config can be overridden from the CLI — CLI options always take precedence.

Supported formats: .env, .yml, .yaml, .toml, .json.

Patterns reference

Pattern	Example	Matches
Exact	.git	Only .git
Glob	*.pyc	Any .pyc file
Regex	re:^\\..*	Any hidden file/dir

Building from source

Requires Python 3.11+ and PyInstaller:

pip install -e ".[dev]"
python build.py

Output binary will be at dist/treesnake (or dist/treesnake.exe on Windows).

Development

# Install with dev dependencies
pip install -e ".[dev]"

# Run tests
pytest

# Run from source
python src/main.py scan .

License

MIT