lx

lx is a CLI tool that bundles your codebase into a single context string for LLMs.

It crawls directories, respects your gitignores, skips binaries, and outputs Markdown, XML, or HTML directly to clipboard along with an estimated token count.

Instead of blindly concatenating files together, lx processes arguments as a stream. This means you can apply different rules (like line limits or filters) to specific files on the fly within a single command.

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Installation • Usage • Stream Processing • Configuration

Features

• Token estimation for individual files and the final output.
• Smart traversal that respects .gitignore, .ignore, and .lxignore.
• Stream processing to apply interleaved options (like --tail 50) mid-command.
• Outputs standard Markdown, XML (ideal for Claude), or HTML.
• Copies directly to your system clipboard on Linux, macOS, and Windows.
• Plays nice with Unix pipelines (find, fd, git, etc.).

Installation

Go install

go install github.com/rasros/lx/cmd/lx@latest

Curl script (pre-built binaries)

curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/rasros/lx/main/install.sh | bash

Dependencies

Clipboard support (-c) requires xclip on X11 Linux or wl-clipboard on Wayland. macOS and Windows work out of the box.

Usage

Basic bundling

Grab everything in the current directory (ignoring hidden files) and copy to clipboard:

lx -c

Filter by type

Get all Python files, but skip the tests:

lx -i "*.py" -e "*test*" src/

XML output

Dump the directory as structured XML (Claude prefers this):

lx --xml .

Prompt injection

Prepend a custom instruction before the code context:

lx -p "Refactor the following code to use contexts:" main.go

Custom sections

Add custom headers to group specific files (also adjusts XML output):

lx -s "Code under test" src/database/users -s "Test fixtures" src/tests/fixtures

Interactive selection with fzf

Use fd to find files, preview them with lx, and bundle the final selection:

fd -t f | fzf -m --preview 'lx -n 20 {}' | lx -c

Piping to LLM CLI

Send context directly into llm tool:

lx -p "Explain this project structure" src/ | llm

Working with git

Only bundle the files that changed in your current branch:

git diff --name-only main | lx -c

Stream Processing Model

lx processes arguments left to right as a stream of sections - consecutive file/directory arguments with no interleaved options between them. Interleaved options (like -n, --tail, -l, -i) are scoped to the section they precede. When an interleaved option appears after files, it creates a section boundary: all interleaved options reset to defaults before the new option takes effect.

Example: Grab the last 50 lines of a log file, then src/ with line numbers enabled:

lx --tail 50 app.log -l src/

Argument	Effect
--tail 50	Sets tail for the next section
app.log	Gets the last 50 lines
-l	Section boundary: state resets to defaults, then line numbers enabled
src/	Gets full content with line numbers

Output Formats

Flag	Format	Best For
(default)	Markdown	ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, DeepSeek
--xml	XML	Claude (uses <document> and <source> tags)
--html	HTML	Archiving or visual debugging

Configuration

You can set your defaults in ~/.config/lx/config.yaml:

output_mode: "stdout"    # stdout, copy
output_format: "xml"     # markdown, xml, html

Comparison

Feature	lx	repopack	files-to-prompt
Language	Go	Node.js	Python
Stream Processing	✅	❌	❌
Clipboard Copy	✅	❌	❌
XML Support	✅	✅	✅
Token Estimation	✅	✅	❌
Binary Detection	✅	✅	✅