First run

Start tongs from any directory:

tongs

The inbox opens at once. While it loads, tongs looks for your repositories and asks each forge for open reviews.

tongs · inboxfull size ↗

demo data, cropped on small screens

What tongs scans

tongs walks your scan root, ~/git by default, up to five directory levels deep. For each git repository it finds, it reads the remotes and works out the forge:

• github.com and gitlab.com are recognized on their own.
• Hostnames listed under [hosts.*] in the config use the forge you set there.

Repositories with any other remote, including a self-hosted forge that is not listed under [hosts.*], or with no remote at all, are skipped. tongs does not guess the forge from a hostname.

To scan a different directory for one run, pass --scan-root (or -d):

tongs --scan-root ~/projects

To change it for good, set scan_root in the config file:

~/.config/tongs/config.toml

[general]
scan_root = "~/projects"
scan_depth = 5

The inbox tabs

The inbox has three tabs. Each one loads the first time you open it, fetching from every repository in parallel.

Key	Tab	Shows
1	My Reviews	Reviews where you are a requested reviewer
2	My MRs	Reviews you opened
3	All Open	Every open review across your repositories

Press s to cycle the sort order and r for the repository list, where Enter scopes the inbox to one project.

Open a review

Move to a row and press Enter. The review opens on its overview, with four more tabs a number key away:

Key	Tab
1	Overview
2	Diff
3	Commits
4	Discussion
5	Pipeline

Press Esc to go back to the inbox. A few keys work almost everywhere:

Key	Action
?	Show a short help hint
Ctrl+P	Command palette
Ctrl+R	Refresh the current view
o	Open the review in your browser
q	Back, or quit from the inbox

The Keybindings reference lists every key.

If something is missing

No repositories found

• Check that the scan root holds git repositories with GitHub or GitLab remotes.
• Raise scan_depth if your repositories sit more than five levels below the scan root.
• For a self-hosted forge, add a [hosts.*] section. See Self-hosted forges.

A tab reports a skipped host

tongs shows a warning naming the host and the reason, usually a missing or expired credential. See If sign-in fails.

Slow startup

• Lower scan_depth if tongs walks too many directories.
• Lower max_parallel in [concurrency] if you hit forge rate limits. It defaults to 8 requests at a time.

Next

• Inbox covers filtering, sorting and the repository list.
• Diffs and comments covers reading a change and commenting on it.
• Review drafts covers collecting comments and submitting them as one review.