Frequently Asked Questions

GitLoki is a tool that lets you visually and interactively explore your Git history, instantly run any commit in isolated environments, and share/explore snapshots with your team or community. It's core logic revolves around the ease and ability to take in-depth looks at specific commits and branches, and run them in a virtual or local environment.

GitLoki's heart lies in its ability to run any commit in isolated environments, allowing you to explore and debug code without affecting your local setup. It also provides a visual layout of your Git history, making it easier to understand the evolution of your project. Unlike other tools, GitLoki's strengths lie in the hands off approach to configuring environments, installing dependencies, and simply running your code.

GitLoki is slated for a public release sometime in 2026, but we are currently in a closed beta phase. You can sign up for our beta program on the homepage to get early access and help shape the product.

GitLoki supports macOS, Windows, and Linux. Although functionality may vary slightly across platforms, the core features remain consistent. We are working on expanding support and universal functionality for all platforms.

Think about a time when you needed to debug a specific commit or branch, or even just view your program as it was x amount of time ago- With GitLoki, you can run any commit in an isolated environment, allowing you to explore the code without affecting your local setup. This is particularly useful for debugging, testing, or simply understanding how a specific commit works. If you decide to spin up an environment in a Docker container for example, all relevant Docker images, dependencies, and configurations are automatically created for you. We just want developers to be able to click and run.

Under the hood, GitLoki uses a bespoke Project Identity Detection Engine (PIDE) that analyzes your repository's structure and dependencies. This allows us to create isolated environments tailored to the specific commit or branch you're interested in. For Docker, we create Docker images that are optimized for the code you're running, ensuring that all dependencies are included and configured correctly. The beta only includes support for most Node.js and Python projects, but we are working on expanding support for other languages and frameworks.

Yes, the goal here in the future is to allow you to share environments with your team or community. You can create a snapshot of your environment and share it with others, allowing them to run the same code in the same environment.

Yes, the core functionality of GitLoki is built around Docker. Whether you are familiar with Docker or not, GitLoki allows you to speed up the process of creating Docker images, and minimizing the friction of running code in isolated environments.

GitLoki was built with a 'minimal data' philosophy. We don't permanently store your personal information or repository data. Repository access is temporary and for the sole purpose of providing our service. All changes remain local to our service and you control whether to commit them.

While we request write access, we only use it to create temporary configurations in our service environment. We never push changes to your repository without your explicit approval, and all modifications remain in isolated environments unless you choose to apply them. As you begin the process of developing and creating environents, you will see various prompts and notifications that will allow you to approve or deny any changes to your repository. GitLoki will never push changes to your repository without your explicit approval.

All environments are created in isolated containers, and any management is handled within Docker. This means that GitLoki does not actually store any of your code or data. We only temporarily store the configurations needed to recreate the environment on to your machine. Once you are done with the environment, the temporary branch is deleted, all cached data is deleted, and the environment is destroyed. This, of course, means that a requirmement to use GitLoki is that you have Docker installed on your machine.

Yes, you can revoke access to your repositories at any time through GitHub/GitLab or through GitLoki itself. You can also request deletion of any data associated with your account.

You can join here.

Beta testers get early access to GitLoki, the ability to shape the product through direct feedback, and special perks like extended free trials or discounts when we launch publicly.

The beta period will last until we feel the product is ready for general availability. Beta testers will be the first to know about our launch plans, and will receive persistent, free updates and access to the product.

No, the beta program is free. We value your feedback and participation in helping us build the best product possible.