Hi, today I want to talk about how I expanded my CLI tool’s functionality by analyzing another similar open-source project, Repomix. Before diving into the code, I wanted to get a sense of what the project actually did, so I started with the web version. The visual interface helped me understand its features a lot faster than just staring at files full of unfamiliar code.
After experimenting with the web version, I noticed several useful options: you could compress code, remove comments, and strip empty lines. These features seemed really practical since I often use my own repository packaging tool for personal projects, and even after packaging, there’s usually a lot of irrelevant content left. I really liked how Repomix handled this problem, so I decided to see how it implemented these features.
To begin my inspection, I forked and cloned the Repomix repository to my local machine. My goal was to locate all the code related to the “compress” feature, including its implementation, configuration or build references, and any related tests or documentation. I started by running git grep "compress" to quickly search through the project. This helped me identify where the term appeared in the codebase. I found several references, but the main implementation I later used as a reference was in two functions: processContent and parseFile. From there, I examined the function definitions and traced how the “compress” logic flowed through the application.
While reading the code, I didn’t go line-by-line like reading a book. Instead, I focused on small sections at a time. I looked at how the function names were chosen, how the logic was structured, and how the feature interacted with other modules. To better understand complex parts, I sometimes asked an ai to summarize certain functions or explain unfamiliar code patterns. That helped me save time and make sense of the code’s flow.
Overall, this process taught me a lot about reading code with a specific goal. Instead of getting lost in unrelated details, I used search tools and contextual reading to locate exactly what mattered. Seeing how Repomix handled code compression gave me clear ideas for how to structure my own --compress option in my CLI tool.