Gotcha/README.md

Gotcha

Gotcha is a lightweight Gitea and Forgejo client with a reusable Rust core, a CLI, a Ratatui terminal interface, and a native iOS application. The iOS interface is UIKit/Swift; UniFFI exposes the Rust application logic to Swift.

On the icon: git in a tea cup. it is obvious, isn't it?

On the name: well, tea, we established that. there is something tea like called matcha. and this is git. so gotcha, because gitcha sounds dumb. Stop rolling your eyes.

In general, this app is mainly meant for self-hosters who run their own small installation of gitea and want to pay attention to what their AI agents push to their projects. decentralisation is the game, so this is for that use case. this is not necessarily the app to use when you manage or frequent a large instance.

Workspace

• gotcha_gitea: reusable asynchronous Gitea/Forgejo API client with the complete typed Gitea 1.25-compatible API and model surface
• gotcha: CLI for typed common operations and arbitrary API requests
• gotcha-tui: paned, keyboard-and-mouse terminal application
• gotcha-app: Rust application core and UniFFI API used by iOS
• ios: native UIKit application for activity, repositories, favorites, issues, milestones, pull requests, commit history, changed files, and diffs; bundle identifier de.rfc1437.gotcha

The generated API modules and models cover every Gitea 1.25 operation. The low-level request API remains available for newer instance-specific endpoints; purpose-built CLI and app views are added feature-by-feature.

See API_COVERAGE.md for the live contract inventory and the separate API-crate and CLI coverage status.

CLI

Build the workspace with cargo build; the CLI executable is written to target/debug/gotcha. To build only the CLI, use cargo build -p gotcha-cli.

Create an optimized release build of the CLI with:

cargo build --release -p gotcha-cli

The executable is written to target/release/gotcha.

Store each server profile in ~/.config/gotcha/config:

cargo run -p gotcha-cli -- auth login gitea.example.com
cargo run -p gotcha-cli -- auth login forgejo.example.com --provider forgejo

cargo run -p gotcha-cli -- server version
cargo run -p gotcha-cli -- user show
cargo run -p gotcha-cli -- repo list
cargo run -p gotcha-cli -- repo show
cargo run -p gotcha-cli -- issue list
cargo run -p gotcha-cli -- issue list --milestones "Version 1.0" --state open
cargo run -p gotcha-cli -- issue show 7
cargo run -p gotcha-cli -- issue close 7
cargo run -p gotcha-cli -- milestone list
cargo run -p gotcha-cli -- pull list
cargo run -p gotcha-cli -- api request GET repos/owner/project/issues
cargo run -p gotcha-cli -- api request POST user/repos '{"name":"demo"}'

auth login derives https://gitea.example.com from the server name, discovers Gitea or Forgejo, and reads the token from standard input with echo disabled. The optional provider requires the selected API when automatic discovery is not sufficient. The resulting plain YAML file at ~/.config/gotcha/config has mode 0600 and one entry per server:

servers:
  gitea.example.com:
    url: https://gitea.example.com
    token: your-token
    provider: gitea
  forgejo.example.com:
    url: https://forgejo.example.com
    token: your-token
    provider: forgejo

Inside a Git repository, Gotcha matches its remotes to these server URLs and derives the owner/repository scope. Use --server gitea.example.com when selection is ambiguous, or --url/GITEA_URL for an unconfigured server. Tokens are never accepted as command-line arguments or environment variables.

Terminal UI

Build and run the standalone TUI with an existing CLI server profile:

cargo run -p gotcha-tui
cargo run -p gotcha-tui -- --server gitea.example.com

The five numbered panes mirror the iPhone app: Home, Issues, Repositories, pull requests, and Milestones. Use j/k or the arrow keys to select rows, Enter to open, Backspace to return, / for list filters, and a, e, c, x, and d for mutations. Use n/p for API result pages; scrolling the mouse wheel past a page boundary does the same. Repository lists support * favorites, commit lists support b branch switching, and Home supports v activity filters. Editors use Tab between fields and Ctrl-S to save. Mouse selection, double-click, and wheel scrolling work in ordinary terminals and Herdr.

Overview panes refresh every five seconds by default. Press , to change the interval or set it to zero. Refresh waits while an editor or confirmation is open and after keyboard or mouse activity so it does not move the current selection during interaction.

Architecture

gotcha_gitea owns Gitea/Forgejo access, authentication, validation, mutations, relationships between server objects, and shared CLI/TUI server configuration. The CLI and TUI are terminal presentation layers that invoke shared client operations. gotcha-app owns application state, preferences, favorites, Keychain-backed credentials, and view-ready UniFFI records. UIKit owns native navigation, controls, layout, and other platform presentation behavior.

New server workflows belong in gotcha_gitea::Client first, then receive CLI or app presentation as needed. Future work includes iOS integrations such as sharing, notifications, and background refresh.

iOS app

Prebuilt iPhone releases will be distributed through the rfc1437 Apps AltStore PAL source. The source page explains how to add it to AltStore PAL and install available apps.

Server tokens are kept in the Apple Keychain; JSON preferences contain only server metadata, settings, and favorites. The app requires Xcode, XcodeGen, an installed iOS Simulator runtime, and Rust's aarch64-apple-ios and aarch64-apple-ios-sim targets. Generate the project after installing those prerequisites:

cd ios
xcodegen generate
open Gotcha.xcodeproj

For a fast host-side check, run cargo test -p gotcha-app.

See TESTING.md for the complete build, simulator, gesture, and release regression checklist.