Git pager and difftool

Pager mode inspects stdin: patch-like content opens the review UI, while ordinary pager text uses Hunk's plain-text fallback.

Configure the Git pager

git config --global core.pager "hunk pager"

Afterward, commands such as git diff and git show can open in Hunk. Git controls pager input, so untracked files are not synthesized in this mode.

Keep your normal pager and add opt-in aliases instead:

git config --global alias.hdiff '-c core.pager="hunk pager" diff'
git config --global alias.hshow '-c core.pager="hunk pager" show'

Plain-text fallback

Output that is not a unified diff never opens the review UI; Hunk streams it to a plain-text pager instead. The pager command comes from HUNK_TEXT_PAGER, then PAGER, then falls back to less -R (more on Windows). A value that resolves back to hunk is ignored in favor of that fallback, so Git can never recurse into hunk pager itself.

Configure Git difftool

Tell Git how to invoke Hunk for each temporary file pair:

git config --global diff.tool hunk
git config --global difftool.hunk.cmd 'hunk difftool "$LOCAL" "$REMOTE" "$MERGED"'
git config --global difftool.prompt false

Then run:

git difftool

Difftool is pair-oriented because Git invokes the command once per file. Prefer hunk diff when you want Hunk's native full-changeset stream.

Undo the integration

Remove only the settings you added:

git config --global --unset core.pager          # pager
git config --global --unset alias.hdiff         # opt-in aliases
git config --global --unset alias.hshow
git config --global --unset diff.tool           # difftool
git config --global --unset difftool.prompt
git config --global --remove-section difftool.hunk

Leaving diff.tool = hunk behind after removing difftool.hunk makes git difftool warn about an unknown tool.