By CyberShrine Labs • August 2026
Engineering Shiply: Parsing AST Diffs for Semantic Git Commits & Developer Telemetry
A deep dive into building an AI-powered CLI. How we analyze staging diffs, optimize context windows for local latency, and track developer momentum with zero cloud lock-in.
## The Problem: The Git Commit Burden
Every developer knows the sensation: you have just spent three hours solving a nasty race condition across four microservices. Your tests pass. You are ready to push. And then you face the empty commit prompt:
`git commit -m "..."`
What follows is either a meaningless `git commit -m "fixed stuff"` or a painful pause to re-read your diff and write a conventional commit manually.
### Architecture of Shiply
Shiply was built to solve this exact bottleneck. When you run `shiply commit`, the CLI executes:
1. **Local Diff Extraction**: It scans the git index for staged changes and summarizes the AST (Abstract Syntax Tree) modifications.
2. **Context Window Optimization**: Instead of piping thousands of lines of code into an LLM, Shiply isolates exported symbol changes, function signature diffs, and test assertions.
3. **Semantic Intent Deduction**: The model classifies the changeset into conventional standards (`feat`, `fix`, `refactor`, `perf`, `chore`) and outputs a concise explanation of *why* the change was made.
4. **Streak & Telemetry**: Updates your local activity database and increments your continuous shipping streak.
Try it out on [Shiply.space](https://shiply.space)!