From d4a4c687874aa5f953986015e73e5f88f492be00 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Jonny Barnes <jonathan.barnes@buildempire.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2026 15:42:08 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] Replace diffview.nvim with codediff.nvim

diffview was doing the job for reviewing a branch before merging it, but
not well enough. codediff renders diffs the way VSCode does - light
line-level backgrounds with deeper character-level highlights on top of
them - so what actually changed within a line is legible rather than
inferred.

Keymaps carry over one for one: <leader>gd opens the status explorer,
<leader>gh/<leader>gH the file and branch history, and <leader>gm still
prompts for a base branch and diffs rev...HEAD against it. <leader>gc is
folded into codediff's own quit action alongside q, since there is no
close command to map it to.

Its diffing is done in C, and the library is downloaded prebuilt on
first use rather than compiled, so there is no build step for vim.pack
to worry about.
---
 neovim/README.md                              |  6 ++++++
 .../plugins/{diffview.lua => codediff.lua}    | 21 ++++++++++++-------
 neovim/config/plugins/init.lua                |  2 +-
 neovim/nvim-pack-lock.json                    |  6 +++---
 4 files changed, 24 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)
 rename neovim/config/plugins/{diffview.lua => codediff.lua} (53%)

diff --git a/neovim/README.md b/neovim/README.md
index 57f4af4..aa6f6e4 100644
--- a/neovim/README.md
+++ b/neovim/README.md
@@ -37,6 +37,12 @@ machine gets the same set.
 > nvim-web-devicons needs a Nerd Font in the terminal or the icons render as
 > tofu. `brew.sh` installs one for ghostty.
 
+> [!NOTE]
+> codediff.nvim does its diffing in C. It downloads a prebuilt library into its
+> own plugin directory on first use — so the first `:CodeDiff` on a new machine
+> needs network, and the binary is not covered by the lock file. `:CodeDiff
+> install!` forces a re-download if it ever goes missing or stale.
+
 ## Defaults worth knowing
 
 - **The colorscheme is catppuccin**, `flavour = 'auto'`: latte on a light
diff --git a/neovim/config/plugins/diffview.lua b/neovim/config/plugins/codediff.lua
similarity index 53%
rename from neovim/config/plugins/diffview.lua
rename to neovim/config/plugins/codediff.lua
index 0f7befd..80775fe 100644
--- a/neovim/config/plugins/diffview.lua
+++ b/neovim/config/plugins/codediff.lua
@@ -1,15 +1,20 @@
-vim.pack.add({ 'https://github.com/sindrets/diffview.nvim' })
+vim.pack.add({ 'https://github.com/esmuellert/codediff.nvim' })
 
-require('diffview').setup()
+require('codediff').setup({
+  keymaps = {
+    -- q closes the diff tab from inside it; <leader>gc is here too so the
+    -- same key that opened things from the g/diff group also shuts them.
+    view = { quit = { 'q', '<leader>gc' } },
+  },
+})
 
 local function map(lhs, rhs, desc)
   vim.keymap.set('n', lhs, rhs, { desc = desc })
 end
 
-map('<leader>gd', '<Cmd>DiffviewOpen<CR>', 'Diff against index')
-map('<leader>gc', '<Cmd>DiffviewClose<CR>', 'Close diff view')
-map('<leader>gh', '<Cmd>DiffviewFileHistory %<CR>', 'File history')
-map('<leader>gH', '<Cmd>DiffviewFileHistory<CR>', 'Branch history')
+map('<leader>gd', '<Cmd>CodeDiff<CR>', 'Diff working tree')
+map('<leader>gh', '<Cmd>CodeDiff history %<CR>', 'File history')
+map('<leader>gH', '<Cmd>CodeDiff history<CR>', 'Branch history')
 
 -- The base branch name varies per repo (main, master, develop, ...), so ask
 -- the first remote's HEAD what it is rather than hardcoding one.
@@ -28,7 +33,9 @@ end
 map('<leader>gm', function()
   vim.ui.input({ prompt = 'Diff against: ', default = default_branch() }, function(rev)
     if rev and rev ~= '' then
-      vim.cmd('DiffviewOpen ' .. rev .. '...HEAD')
+      -- rev...HEAD is merge-base semantics: what this branch added, not what
+      -- the base branch has moved on to since.
+      vim.cmd('CodeDiff ' .. rev .. '...HEAD')
     end
   end)
 end, 'Diff against branch')
diff --git a/neovim/config/plugins/init.lua b/neovim/config/plugins/init.lua
index 7046983..ea9535b 100644
--- a/neovim/config/plugins/init.lua
+++ b/neovim/config/plugins/init.lua
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 -- The colorscheme goes first so everything after it is drawn with it applied
 require('config.plugins.catppuccin')
-require('config.plugins.diffview')
+require('config.plugins.codediff')
 require('config.plugins.fzf-lua')
 require('config.plugins.gitsigns')
 require('config.plugins.nvim-tree')
diff --git a/neovim/nvim-pack-lock.json b/neovim/nvim-pack-lock.json
index c80ef95..9508372 100644
--- a/neovim/nvim-pack-lock.json
+++ b/neovim/nvim-pack-lock.json
@@ -4,9 +4,9 @@
       "rev": "edefef779ab08ce1a4a404713e3012b0d202bd35",
       "src": "https://github.com/catppuccin/nvim"
     },
-    "diffview.nvim": {
-      "rev": "4516612fe98ff56ae0415a259ff6361a89419b0a",
-      "src": "https://github.com/sindrets/diffview.nvim"
+    "codediff.nvim": {
+      "rev": "e08a35a56a52c290398ebfaec33c34cfcf2d0f3c",
+      "src": "https://github.com/esmuellert/codediff.nvim"
     },
     "fzf-lua": {
       "rev": "8671012a7b2a1648595952c655039d51fb301c14",