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copit

Copy reusable source code from GitHub repos, HTTP URLs, and ZIP archives into your project.

Inspired by shadcn/ui — instead of installing opaque packages, copit copies source code directly into your codebase. The code is yours: readable, modifiable, and fully owned. No hidden abstractions, no dependency lock-in. Override anything, keep what you need.

Use cases

  • Quickly copy and own code — Pull files from GitHub repos, HTTP URLs, or ZIP archives directly into your project. No forks, no submodules — just your own copy to read, modify, and maintain.

  • Build frameworks with injectable components — Create a core library as a traditional package, then offer optional components that users copy into their projects via copit. Think of how shadcn/ui is built on top of Tailwind and Radix UI: the base libraries are installed as dependencies, while UI components are copied in and fully owned. Apply the same pattern to any ecosystem — a LangChain-style core as a library, with community integrations (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.) as injectable source code that users can customize freely.

Features

  • GitHub sources — Copy files or directories from any GitHub repo at a specific ref
  • HTTP URLs — Fetch files from any raw URL
  • ZIP archives — Extract files from ZIP archives with inner path selection
  • Tracking — copit.toml tracks all copied sources for easy updates
  • Update & update-all — Re-fetch individual sources or update all at once
  • Freeze — Pin sources with --freeze to skip them during updates; unpin with --unfreeze
  • Exclude modified — Skip files you've customized during updates, with optional .orig backups
  • Per-source settings — Override overwrite, skip, and backup per source, with CLI flags taking highest priority
  • License auto-copy — Automatically copies LICENSE files from GitHub repos alongside your source files
  • License organization — Centralize licenses in a dedicated directory or keep them side-by-side, and reorganize anytime with licenses-sync

Quick example

# Initialize a copit.toml in your project
copit init

# Copy a file from a GitHub repo
copit add github:serde-rs/serde@v1.0.219/serde/src/lib.rs

# Copy a file from a raw URL
copit add https://raw.githubusercontent.com/serde-rs/serde/refs/heads/master/LICENSE-MIT

# Update a tracked source
copit update vendor/serde

# Update all tracked sources
copit update-all

# Remove a tracked source
copit remove vendor/serde

# Reorganize license files into a centralized directory
copit licenses-sync --licenses-dir licenses

Installation

See the Getting Started guide for installation options and a walkthrough.