graphify-diff (gdiff)

Incremental graph updates from git diffs — patch a Graphify knowledge graph without re-extracting the entire codebase.

The Problem

You run graphify extract to build a dependency/relationship graph of your codebase. Then you make changes and have to re-run the full extraction. For large codebases with docs and images, this means LLM API calls and minutes of waiting — even for a one-line change.

The Solution

graphify-diff reads a git diff, identifies which symbols (functions, classes, imports) were added, removed, or modified, and patches the existing graph.json in-place. No LLM calls. No tree-sitter re-parsing. Seconds instead of minutes.

How It Differs from graphify update

Graphify already has graphify update, which re-extracts only changed files. But it still:

• Re-parses every changed file with tree-sitter
• Re-runs the full graph merge pipeline
• Re-clusters all communities

graphify-diff skips all of that. It works at the symbol level, not the file level. If you change one function in a 500-line file, only that function's node and edges are touched.

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Quick start

pip install graphify-diff

Then run from inside a repo with no arguments — baseline is auto-detected from the last graph build:

gdiff patch        # apply the diff to graph.json
gdiff analyze      # read-only preview of what would change
gdiff impact       # trace transitive effects on the graph

Override the baseline with --since:

gdiff patch --since HEAD~1
gdiff patch . --since main     # run from outside the repo

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Subcommands

Command	What it does
gdiff patch	Apply a git diff to graph.json — cascades through dependent nodes (default depth: 3)
gdiff analyze	Read-only parse of what would change — no graph required
gdiff impact	Trace transitive effects on the existing graph — does not modify it

Patch flags

Flag	Description
--since / -s <ref>	Git ref to diff against (auto-detected if omitted)
--staged	Diff staged changes instead of unstaged
--dry-run / -n	Show what would change without writing
--cascade-depth / -d <n>	How far to cascade dependency changes (default: 3)
--graph / -g <path>	Path to graph.json (default: graphify-out/graph.json)
--output / -o <path>	Output path (default: overwrite input)
--json	Emit machine-readable JSON output

Analyze & impact flags

Flag	Description
--since / -s <ref>	Git ref to diff against
--staged	Diff staged changes
--depth / -d <n>	Cascade depth for impact analysis
--graph / -g <path>	Path to graph.json

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Project links

Source	github.com/toshon-jennings/graphify-diff
PyPI	pypi.org/project/graphify-diff
Issues	GitHub Issues
Changelog	CHANGELOG.md

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License

MIT © 2026 Toshon Jennings