concat-rs

Rust CLI implementation of concat from concat-zsh.

concat merges the contents of multiple files (and/or directories) into a single output file, for use as context in LLM prompts or general file aggregation.

Install

Preferred (uses the repo install script with conflict warnings):

./install

Bypass prompts (for CI/non-interactive use):

./install --force

Notes

• If you still have concat-zsh sourced as a Zsh function named concat, it will shadow the Rust binary. Use command concat ... or remove the function from your shell config.

Usage

concat [OPTIONS] [FILE|DIR|GLOB...]
concat clean [OPTIONS] [DIR...]

If no inputs are provided, concat defaults to ..

Output

• Default output format is XML.
• Use -t, --text for plain text output.
• Output filenames default to _concat-* unless -o, --output is provided. Use -y, --clipboard to copy the output to your clipboard instead of writing a file.
• A metadata header (line and character counts per file) is included by default; disable with -M, --no-metadata.

Output filename logic (when --output is not set)

• -x <ext> once: _concat-<ext>.xml (or .txt with --text)
• -x multiple times: _concat-output.xml
• No args at all: _concat-<cwd>.xml
• One directory input: _concat-<dir>.xml
• Otherwise: _concat-output.xml

Options (main command)

• -o, --output <file>: output file name
• -y, --clipboard: copy the generated output to the system clipboard instead of writing a file
• -r, --recursive: search directories recursively (default)
• -n, --no-recursive: do not recurse
• -t, --text: plain text output (default XML)
• -x, --ext <ext> (repeatable): include only these extensions
• -g, --ignore-ext <ext> (repeatable): exclude these extensions
• -I, --include <glob> (repeatable): include only paths matching these globs
• -e, -E, --exclude <glob> (repeatable): exclude paths matching these globs
• -T, --tree: include a directory tree of the current directory in the output
• -H, --hidden: include hidden files/directories
• -P, --no-purge-pycache: do not remove __pycache__ and .pyc in the current directory
• -C, --no-clean-concat: do not delete existing _concat-* files in the current directory before writing
• -b, --include-binary: include non-text files (encoded as base64)
• -M, --no-metadata: omit the per-file metadata header (line/character counts)
• --metadata-sort <mode>: order metadata by lines (default), characters, or natural (original matched order)
• -l, --no-dir-list: omit the matched directory list section (XML only)
• -v, --verbose: verbose logging
• -d, --debug: extra debug logging

Hidden files + include globs

By default, hidden files are skipped. You can either:

• Pass -H, --hidden, or
• Use an --include glob that explicitly targets hidden paths (for example **/.env), without enabling full hidden traversal globally.

clean subcommand

Deletes previously generated _concat-* files from the given directories (default: .). Searches recursively by default; use -n to disable recursion. Supports -x/-g/-I/-e/-H similarly to the main command.

Contributing

Build locally:

cargo build

Build an optimized binary:

cargo build --release

Run checks:

cargo fmt
cargo clippy --all-targets --all-features -- -D warnings
cargo test