Connect a repo

SeeRepo reads your code through a GitHub App: read-only, and only on the repos you choose. Having access on GitHub doesn't draw anything yet: a repo is only read when you pick it in SeeRepo.

Connecting goes in three steps, shown at the top of the page: Install on GitHub, Choose a repo and Your map.

Step 1: Install the GitHub App

The first time, the page says "First, let SeeRepo see your repos" with one button, Install on GitHub. GitHub asks where to install the SeeRepo app: choose all your repos or only some. You can change it later with Give SeeRepo access to more on GitHub. Back in SeeRepo, a green line says GitHub is connected and how many repos are ready to choose.

The app asks GitHub for read access only:

• Contents: the files, to draw the map.
• Metadata: the repo's name, branches and whether it's private.
• Checks: whether your automatic tests (CI) pass.
• Email addresses: to reach you about your maps.

It listens to two events: each push, to keep the map up to date, and each finished test run.

If your repo has a published site, once a day SeeRepo also requests its public pages, with its own user agent, to know how Google and AI see them. The Privacy Policy tells how.

Step 2: Choose your repo

Under Which repo do you want to see?, search with Search your repos and pick one. Each repo says Private or Public.

Under the list, one sentence says how its map will be drawn, for example "Map in English, on Madrid time." Both come set for you: your language, and your browser's time zone, which defines what "today" means in your project. Click Change to pick others. Website is optional: "Its icon becomes your project's icon. You can change it later."

Step 3: Your map

Click Draw my project. The button shows it's working, and your map opens with its first load running.

A public repo that isn't yours

Under your repos, paste the link of any public repo on GitHub, for example github.com/vercel/next.js, and click Map it. You don't need to install anything for it.

• Its map is public and the same for everyone, at seerepo.com/r/owner/repo. Whoever opens it brings it up to date.
• It joins your panel with a Public tag. Hover its card and click Remove to take it off your panel; the map stays for everyone.
• It doesn't use any of your plan's repos or commits.
• SeeRepo reads a limited number of new public repos each day. When they're used up, it says so: try again the next day.

A repo of your own is better connected from the list above, so its map follows every push.

Follow a second branch

SeeRepo follows your repo's default branch on GitHub. To see another one too, like the branch where an agent is rebuilding your app, open the project's settings: General → Branches → Follow another branch. Pick it from your branches on GitHub and click Draw this branch.

• It's another first load: SeeRepo reads the whole branch and draws its own map, with its own modules and history.
• Up to two branches per project, free with any plan. The second one doesn't use one of your plan's repos, and a commit on both branches counts only once. Your free repo follows one branch.
• With two branches, the tabs next to the project's name switch between their maps, and the project's card on your panel names the second one; its figures stay the default branch's. Whoever you shared the project with sees both. The public link always shows the default branch.
• When the branch is deleted on GitHub, its map freezes and says whether it was merged first. It stays 7 days, then it leaves the project.
• Stop following takes it off sooner. Nothing changes on GitHub, and its map is kept: follow it again and it comes back up to date.

Take a project off your panel

Open the project, then its settings: General, the last card, Take it off your panel. Before anything happens, SeeRepo tells you what it means for that project, and only what's true for it:

• Its map is kept. You can connect it again from Connect a repo, and it's read again from the start.
• If you shared it, whoever had it loses it; to give it back, you'd invite them again.
• If it has a public link, the link stops working until you connect it again.
• If it follows a second branch, SeeRepo stops following that one too; its map is kept.
• On a plan, it frees one of your plan's repos. When your plan's repos are all in use, Connect a repo lists your projects, each one a click from this card.
• Without a plan, only your free repo can come back.
• If GitHub no longer shares the repo with SeeRepo, it comes back to Connect a repo once you give SeeRepo access on GitHub.

A public repo you added by its link has no settings of its own: hover its card and click Remove.

What SeeRepo reads, and what it keeps

To read a repository SeeRepo makes a temporary copy of its files, and deletes it as soon as the work is done. Your source code is never stored. What stays is the map, its sentences, its figures, and the commit history of each branch SeeRepo follows: message, author, date and files.

To read each push faster, SeeRepo's server also keeps the git history of the branches it follows, never what's inside a file: every commit's full message and date, the names and emails of who made it, and the names of all its files and folders. It's deleted after 14 days without a new read, and within minutes when you take the project off your panel, GitHub stops sharing the repo with SeeRepo or you delete your account (unless someone else also has it on SeeRepo).

What's inside the paths you add under Ignore, in the project's settings, is never read. SeeRepo doesn't use your code or your data to train AI models. See the Privacy Policy for who processes what.