go-modiff 📔

Command line tool for diffing go module dependency changes between versions

Usage

The tool can be installed via:

go install github.com/saschagrunert/go-modiff/cmd/go-modiff@latest

After that, the application can be used like this:

> go-modiff -r github.com/cri-o/cri-o -f v1.35.0
INFO Cloning reference repository github.com/cri-o/cri-o
INFO Setting up 'from' at v1.35.0
INFO Setting up 'to' at HEAD
INFO Processing module diffs
INFO 385 modules found
INFO 1 modules added
INFO 11 modules changed
INFO 0 modules removed
INFO Done, the result will be printed to `stdout`

# Dependencies

## Added

- github.com/creack/pty: v1.1.7

## Changed

- github.com/containerd/go-runc: 7d11b49 → 9007c24
- github.com/containerd/project: 831961d → 7fb81da
- github.com/containerd/ttrpc: 2a805f7 → 1fb3814
- github.com/containers/libpod: 5e42bf0 → v1.4.4
- github.com/containers/storage: v1.12.12 → v1.12.13
- github.com/godbus/dbus: 2ff6f7f → 8a16820
- github.com/kr/pty: v1.1.5 → v1.1.8
- golang.org/x/net: 3b0461e → da137c7
- golang.org/x/sys: c5567b4 → 04f50cd
- google.golang.org/grpc: v1.21.1 → v1.22.0
- honnef.co/go/tools: e561f67 → ea95bdf

## Removed

_Nothing has changed._

It is also possible to add diff links to the markdown output via --link, -l. The output would then look like this:

# Dependencies

## Added

- github.com/shurcooL/httpfs: [8d4bc4b](https://github.com/shurcooL/httpfs/tree/8d4bc4b)
- github.com/shurcooL/vfsgen: [6a9ea43](https://github.com/shurcooL/vfsgen/tree/6a9ea43)

## Changed

- github.com/onsi/ginkgo: [v1.8.0 → v1.9.0](https://github.com/onsi/ginkgo/compare/v1.8.0...v1.9.0)
- github.com/onsi/gomega: [v1.5.0 → v1.6.0](https://github.com/onsi/gomega/compare/v1.5.0...v1.6.0)
- github.com/saschagrunert/ccli: [e981d95 → 05e6f25](https://github.com/saschagrunert/ccli/compare/e981d95...05e6f25)
- github.com/urfave/cli: [v1.20.0 → 23c8303](https://github.com/urfave/cli/compare/v1.20.0...23c8303)

## Removed

- github.com/saschagrunert/go-docgen: [v0.1.3](https://github.com/saschagrunert/go-docgen/tree/v0.1.3)

JSON output

Use --format json (or -o json) for machine-readable output:

{
  "added": [],
  "changed": [
    {
      "name": "github.com/onsi/ginkgo",
      "before": "v1.8.0",
      "after": "v1.9.0"
    }
  ],
  "removed": []
}

Filtering

Use --filter to show only a specific category:

go-modiff -r github.com/owner/repo -f v1.0.0 -t v2.0.0 --filter added

Arguments

The following command line arguments are currently supported:

Argument	Description
--repository, -r	repository to be used, like: github.com/owner/repo
--from, -f	the start of the comparison (any valid git rev) (default: "HEAD")
--to, -t	the end of the comparison (any valid git rev) (default: "HEAD")
--link, -l	add diff links to the markdown output (default: false)
--header-level, -i	markdown header level depth (default: 1)
--format, -o	output format: markdown or json (default: "markdown")
--filter	filter by category: added, changed, or removed
--concurrency, -c	concurrent proxy requests for link resolution (default: 10)
--debug, -d	enable debug output (default: false)

How links work

When --link is enabled, go-modiff queries the Go module proxy (proxy.golang.org) to resolve VCS metadata (repository URL, commit hash, git ref) for each changed module. This provides accurate commit and compare links for GitHub and go.googlesource.com hosted modules. For modules where the proxy does not return origin data, go-modiff falls back to URL-pattern-based link generation for GitHub modules.

The --concurrency flag controls how many proxy requests run in parallel (default: 10). Increase it for faster link resolution on large diffs, or decrease it to reduce load on the proxy.

Contributing

You want to contribute to this project? Wow, thanks! So please just fork it and send me a pull request.