SmartArc

A smart command-line archiver that filters files by extension, size, and file type before compressing them. It features an interactive, modern TUI to preview selected files before archiving, making it ideal for creating clean project backups or source distributions without binary bloat or build artifacts.

Features

• Smart Filtering: Automatically identifies and archives source files, configurations, and documentation while skipping build artifacts, dependency directories, and giant files.
• Multiple Archivers Supported: Leverages native command-line archivers (7z, tar, zip) automatically resolved from your system path or common locations.
• Modern Interactive TUI: Built with Bubble Tea and Lip Gloss, presenting real-time progress during scanning and a scrollable/collapsible file tree view.
• Configurable Rules: Custom flags allow you to append extensions, override defaults, ignore specific directories, and include exact filenames.
• Gitignore Integration: Automatically reads and respects rules inside local .gitignore files to match your project configuration.
• Metadata Logging: Optionally embeds a .smartarc-meta.json inside the archive, detailing exact settings, inputs, and build time.
• Performance Focused: Concurrent directory scanning utilizing a pool of worker goroutines for maximum throughput.

Installation

From Releases

You can download pre-compiled binaries for Windows from the Releases page.

From Source

Ensure you have the Go toolchain installed (Go 1.22+ recommended).

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/dhr412/smartarc.git
cd smartarc

# Build the binary
go build -o smartarc.exe ./src/main.go

The compiled binary smartarc.exe will be located in the root folder.

Usage

Run the executable with --archiver (or -a) and any optional flags:

# Example: Create a zip archive using 7z, respecting .gitignore, and adding custom extensions
./smartarc.exe -a 7z -f zip --gitignore --ext .sol,.move .

# Example: Run a dry-run to preview files from multiple project directories
./smartarc.exe -a zip --dry-run /path/to/project1 /path/to/project2

Options

Archiving Options

Flag	Description	Default	Values
-a, --archiver	Required. The system compression utility to invoke	-	7z, tar, zip
-f, --format	Output archive format (auto-inferred if omitted)	-	7z, zip, tar.gz, tar.xz, tar.bz2, tar
-o, --output	Custom output file name or absolute path	smartarc-<datetime>.<ext>	Any file path
-l, --level	Compression level (0 = store, 9 = maximum compression)	5	0 to 9
--embed-meta	Embed .smartarc-meta.json in the root of the archive	false	flag
--dry-run	Scan, filter, and preview file structure without writing the archive	false	flag

Filtering Options

Flag	Description	Default	Values
-s, --max-size	Maximum file size in bytes to include in the scan	8388608 (8MB)	Any integer >= 0
-w, --workers	Number of concurrent goroutines for scanning	8	Any integer >= 1
-e, --ext	Comma-separated list of additional extensions to include	-	e.g. .sol,.move
-i, --ignore	Comma-separated list of additional directories to ignore	-	e.g. temp,logs
--include-dirs	Override ignored directories or allowlist folders	-	e.g. build,vendor
--include-names	Comma-separated list of additional exact filenames to include	-	e.g. config.toml
--gitignore	Read and respect local .gitignore rules	false	flag

To exit the application during dry-run or archive phase, press q or Ctrl+C in the terminal.

How It Works

smartarc scans the target folders recursively and builds a list of matching files in real-time.

1. Scanning: It runs concurrent workers (configured via --workers) to traverse directories.
2. Filtering:
   • Extensions & Names: Matches files against a comprehensive built-in list of source extensions (Go, Python, JS, C++, Rust, etc.) and file names (Dockerfile, Makefile, etc.), plus any custom values provided.
   • Binary Detection: Automatically skips binary files by checking their magic bytes (ELF, PE, PNG, JPEG, PDF, etc.) and checking for NUL bytes.
   • Size Limit: Skips files larger than the --max-size threshold.
   • Directory Ignores: Skips standard dependency and output directories (like node_modules, .git, dist, target, bin) unless explicitly allowed via --include-dirs.
   • Gitignore Rules: Optionally filters out files matching patterns defined in local .gitignore files.
3. TUI Preview: If --dry-run is active, it starts a Bubble Tea interactive session showing a tree visualization of all matched files. Folders that were ignored but overridden will be shown as collapsed with a notice.
4. Archiving: It writes the relative paths of all target files to a temporary file list and invokes the selected system archiver (7z, tar, or zip) to produce the archive in the common parent directory. If --embed-meta is set, a .smartarc-meta.json is generated and packed alongside the files.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.