What The Diff

What The Diff is an intelligent AI assistant designed to revolutionize the code review process for development teams. By integrating seamlessly with GitHub and GitLab, it automates several tedious aspects of managing pull requests (PRs), allowing developers to focus more on coding and less on administrative tasks. The core mission of What The Diff is to make pull requests accessible and understandable for everyone on the team, including non-technical members like product managers and designers.

The tool analyzes the 'diff' (the changes in code) of a pull request and generates a clear, human-readable summary in plain English or other supported languages. This saves developers significant time that would otherwise be spent writing detailed descriptions. Beyond just descriptions, it enhances team communication by sending simplified summary notifications to designated channels like Slack or email, keeping everyone in the loop without needing them to parse through code. This feature is particularly useful for keeping non-technical stakeholders informed about development progress.

How to use What The Diff

Getting started with What The Diff is a straightforward process:

1. Connect Your Account: Sign up by logging in with your GitHub or GitLab account. This links What The Diff to your chosen version control platform.
2. Authorize and Select Repositories: Grant the application access to the repositories you want it to monitor. You have full control and can choose to grant access to all or select specific repositories.
3. Enable and Configure: From your dashboard, enable What The Diff for each desired repository. You can then configure repository-specific settings to tailor its behavior to your team's workflow.
4. Choose an Operation Mode:
   a) Shortcode Method (Recommended): Add simple shortcodes like wtd:summary, wtd:poem, or wtd:joke directly into your PR description. What The Diff will automatically replace these with AI-generated content.
   b) Automatic Comments: Configure the tool to automatically post a summary as a comment on a PR. This can be triggered by PR creation, updates, or by adding a specific label (e.g., 'WTD') for manual control.
5. Inline Refactoring: During a code review, simply comment on a line of code with /wtd followed by your refactoring instruction (e.g., /wtd rename this variable to 'userCount'). The AI will suggest the code change directly in the PR for one-click approval.

Core Features of What The Diff

• Automated PR Descriptions: Automatically generates clear, concise summaries of code changes, saving developer time and effort.
• Rich Summary Notifications: Sends simplified and translated summaries to non-technical stakeholders via Slack, email, or webhooks to keep them informed.
• Inline AI Refactoring: Allows reviewers to suggest and apply minor code changes with a simple command, reducing back-and-forth communication.
• Automated Changelog Generation: Creates beautiful, public-facing changelogs from your PRs, which can also be consumed via a JSON API for internal use.
• Weekly Progress Reports: Delivers automated weekly reports summarizing all the changes and key PRs, perfect for management and team updates.
• Fine-Grained Control: Offers detailed settings to manage token consumption, exclude specific files or folders (like build artifacts or documentation), and ignore PRs from CI bots or drafts.
• Multi-Language Support: Supports nearly all programming languages for analysis and can generate summaries in multiple human languages.

Use Cases for What The Diff

What The Diff is valuable for various scenarios and roles:

• Development Teams: Speed up the code review cycle by automating description writing and clarifying changes for reviewers.
• Project Managers: Stay updated on development progress through easy-to-understand Slack or email notifications without needing to navigate GitHub/GitLab.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Bridge the gap between technical and non-technical teams (e.g., design, product, marketing) by providing translated, jargon-free summaries of new features or fixes.
• Open Source Projects: Maintain high-quality documentation and changelogs automatically, making it easier for contributors and users to follow along.

Advantages of What The Diff

The primary advantage of What The Diff is its ability to significantly improve efficiency and communication. It streamlines the entire PR lifecycle, reduces manual work, and ensures all stakeholders are on the same page. Its focus on privacy is a key benefit; the tool does not store your code, only processing the diff via the official GitHub/GitLab APIs. The flexible configuration and usage-based pricing make it accessible for teams of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises.

Pricing and Plans

What The Diff offers a usage-based pricing model with a free tier to get started.

• Free Plan: $0/month. Includes 25,000 tokens per month (enough for ~10 average PRs), unlimited repositories, and inline code refactoring. No credit card is required.
• Pro - 200k Plan: $19/month. Includes 200,000 tokens per month (~40 PRs), all features of the free plan, plus Slack, Webhook, and Email notifications, and priority email support.
• Larger Plans: Additional plans are available for teams with higher usage, offering 500k, 1.5M, or even unlimited tokens.

Tokens are consumed when the AI processes the git diff of a pull request. Unused tokens do not roll over to the next month, so users are encouraged to choose a plan that fits their needs and adjust as necessary.