FAQ

What is the "Safety Manager"?

It's the part of GitCat that snapshots your repo before every mutation — a rebase, a reset, a filter-repo run, anything that changes history or the working tree. That snapshot is what the global Undo (⌘Z) restores from, and restoring is itself just another snapshotted mutation, so Undo is always undoable too. There's no single operation in the app that can put you in a state you can't get back out of with one click — the closest exception is git-filter-repo, which gets its own dedicated backup/restore wizard on top of the usual snapshot because rewriting an entire history is a fundamentally bigger action.

Does GitCat do anything to my repository without asking?

No. Every mutating action is something you clicked (or dragged, or typed a command for) — GitCat doesn't run background git operations that touch history or the working tree on its own. It does watch the repo's .git directory so the graph stays live if you commit from a terminal alongside it, but that's a read, not a write.

Why are the installers unsigned?

There's no code-signing certificate configured for the project yet. See Install for how to get past your OS's Gatekeeper/SmartScreen warning — it's a one-time step, not a red flag about the build itself.

What platforms does GitCat run on?

macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows (x86_64 and arm64), and Linux (x86_64 and arm64, as .deb/.rpm/.AppImage). All six are built from the same tag on every release.

Is GitCat free? What's the license?

Yes — GitCat is free software, licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later.

Does it support submodules?

Yes — init/update (including --recursive), add, deinit/remove, and you can "Open" a submodule to manage it exactly like a top-level repo. A submodule navigator strip under the topbar shows a breadcrumb of where you are (each ancestor a click away), the current level's siblings as one-click tabs, and a 🌳 button that opens the full submodule tree — so you can jump straight to a parent, a sibling, or any submodule at any depth. Opening a submodule folder directly picks up its parent and siblings automatically, and switching back to a repo you were just on is instant.

Does it support git bisect / interactive rebase / stash?

Yes to all three. Bisect gives you live canvas cues for the narrowing candidate range and automatic first-bad-commit detection; interactive rebase is a drag-to-reorder planner (pick/edit/squash/fixup/drop) before anything runs; and the working-directory panel covers stage/unstage/commit/stash apply/pop/drop.

Can it handle very large repositories?

Yes — GitCat is developed against CPython (150k+ commits). The graph streams in newest-first and only ever draws the visible rows, scrolling stays smooth and legible thanks to a scroll-blit render path, and everyday operations like checkout or creating a branch update the graph in place instead of re-walking the whole history each time (only actions that genuinely add or remove commits trigger a full reload).

How does push/pull authentication work?

GitCat shells out to your system's git binary for every write operation (fetch/pull/push, and everything else that mutates a repo), so it uses whatever credential helper, SSH agent, or .gitconfig you already have set up — there's no separate credential store to configure.

How is this different from GitHub Desktop / GitKraken / Sourcetree / [other Git GUI]?

The main difference is the Safety Manager: GitCat is built around the assumption that a history-rewriting mistake should always be one Undo away, not something you have to know git reflog to recover from by hand. It's also free and open source (GPLv3), with a fast virtualized canvas graph designed to stay smooth on large repos.

I found a bug or want a feature. Where do I report it?

Open an issue on GitHub.