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Review What a Push Will Publish

gitscan pending --files lists every file path touched by the commits you have made locally but not yet pushed. Use it as the last look before a push, or as the input to a check that should run over exactly what is about to leave your machine.

One repository

gitscan pending --files .

Repo: /home/me/src/acme/billing (branch: main)
Pending commits (not yet pushed to @{upstream}): 3

#  HASH     DAY  TIMESTAMP                  MESSAGE
1  a1b2c3d  Thu  2026-10-08T09:12:04-07:00  feat: add invoice export
2  d4e5f6a  Thu  2026-10-08T09:40:31-07:00  fix: round tax to cents
3  0f9e8d7  Thu  2026-10-08T10:02:55-07:00  docs: describe the export format

Files (4):
  docs/export.md
  go.mod
  internal/invoice/export.go
  internal/invoice/export_test.go

The list is merged across the commits: a file changed by all three commits appears once. It is sorted, and every path is relative to the repository root.

Many repositories

Pass several paths, or a directory of repositories, and each repository gets its own list:

gitscan pending --files ~/src/acme ~/src/me

Repositories with nothing pending are left out of the table. For scripts, use JSON, which has a files array on each repository:

gitscan pending --files --format json ~/src/acme \
  | jq -r '.repos[] | .repo as $r | .files[]? | "\($r)/\(.)"'

That prints absolute paths, one per line, ready to pipe into another tool. The files key is left out for a repository with nothing pending, hence the ?.

What the list contains

The list is every path the pending commits carry, which is not always the same as what is in the tree after them:

  • A file that a later pending commit deleted is still listed.
  • A rename lists both the old and the new path.
  • Merge commits add nothing of their own. The commits they merge are in the range and are counted directly.

This is deliberate: a file that was added and then removed before the push is still in the pushed history, so a check over "what this push publishes" should see it. If you want only the paths that exist in the final tree, use git directly:

git diff --name-only @{upstream}..HEAD

Choosing the range

By default the range is the commits ahead of the branch's push target: its configured upstream, or the matching remote-tracking branch. A branch that has never been pushed is compared with the remote's default branch, so only the commits unique to the branch count. If there is no remote at all, every commit is pending.

To list the files since a specific commit instead, for one repository:

gitscan pending --files --since-commit abc1234 .

The commit list and the file list always describe the same range.

Limits

  • The list has paths only. It does not include file contents, per-file change status, or which commit touched which file.
  • It reports facts, not findings. What to do with the paths, such as scanning them for secrets or internal names, is up to the tool you pipe them into.