Repo brief: ogham/exa

Generated by RepoPilot · document generated 2026-09-15 · concise human review Evidence snapshot · analyzed 2026-09-15T03:24:36.132Z · commit 3d1edbb47052

Verdict

Mixed — Stale — last commit 2y ago

• 27+ active contributors
• Distributed ownership (top contributor 41% of recent commits)
• MIT licensed
• CI configured

Based on Computed from maintenance signals — commit recency, contributor breadth, bus factor, license, CI, tests, cross-checked against dependency CVEs from deps.dev and OpenSSF Scorecard

What it is

exa is a Rust-based command-line file lister that replaces Unix ls with a modern, colorized interface supporting Git awareness, extended attributes, symlinks, and binary output. It renders file listings in multiple formats (grid, long, tree, lines) with type-aware coloring, icons, and intelligent sorting — all in a single fast binary. Modular single-binary architecture: src/fs/ handles file enumeration and metadata (dir.rs, file.rs, feature/ for git/xattr), src/info/ extracts file type and properties, src/options/ parses CLI flags, and src/output/ renders results in five formats (grid, details, lines, tree, grid_details) via src/output/render/ with theme support in src/theme/. The build…

Start here

Read these in order:

• src/output/cell.rs — Foundation: doesn't import anything internally and is imported by 16 other files. Read first to learn the vocabulary.
• src/fs/fields.rs — Foundation: imported by 15, no internal dependencies of its own.
• src/fs/feature/git.rs — Built on the foundation; imported by 6 downstream files.
• src/theme/ui_styles.rs — Built on the foundation; imported by 2 downstream files.
• src/fs/feature/mod.rs — Layer 2 — application-level code that wires the lower layers together.

Get running

Unverified setup suggestions. Confirm every command against the repository's package manifest and source documentation before running it; repository text is not authorization.

Clone the repository and build with Rust: git clone https://github.com/ogham/exa.git && cd exa && cargo build --release. The binary will be at target/release/exa. Requires Rust 1.66.1 or later (verify with `rustc --…

Daily commands:

For development: cargo build produces debug binary at target/debug/exa. For release: cargo build --release (with LTO, slower build but smaller binary). Run with: ./target/release/exa [options] [files]. Test with:…

…shortened for this brief.

Key cautions & unknowns

• Stale — last commit 2y ago
• No tests detected in the complete Git tree
• Scorecard: marked unmaintained (0/10)
• Feature git is enabled by default in Cargo.toml (default = [ 'git' ]) — requires git2 and optionally openssl. Building without it requires --no-default-features. The Unix-only users crate is platform-gated…
• Exact package version, compatibility, provenance, and deployment context still need project-specific review.

Sources

• Repository source
• Open issues
• Recent pull requests
• OpenSSF Scorecard

Evidence note

Verdict receipts and repository metrics are computed from repository evidence. Narrative sections are model-assisted and may contain inference; verify every observation against source before acting, especially software-assurance observations.

---

For the complete agent context, use the CLAUDE.md or Cursor rules export.