Quick Start

The basics

Point tree2guide at any folder:

tree2guide my-project

A file called my-project_tree.md is written to your current directory. Open it, paste it into a README, or feed it to an AI — it’s ready to go.

Scan your whole project

Run it from inside the project root, targeting . (the current directory):

cd my-project
tree2guide .

This scans everything under my-project/. Put a .tree2ignore file at my-project/.tree2ignore to exclude what you don’t need.

Print to stdout instead of a file

Pipe directly to your clipboard:

# macOS
tree2guide . --stdout | pbcopy

# Windows
tree2guide . --stdout | clip

# Linux (X11)
tree2guide . --stdout | xclip -selection clipboard

Or pipe into another tool:

tree2guide . --stdout | grep "\.py"

Choose an output format

tree2guide supports six formats. Markdown is the default:

tree2guide . --format markdown   # default — fenced code block, ready to paste
tree2guide . --format text       # plain text, no fences
tree2guide . --format json       # structured {name, type, children} JSON
tree2guide . --format yaml       # same shape as JSON, hand-serialized
tree2guide . --format html       # self-contained page with collapsible folders
tree2guide . --format llm        # AI-friendly summary with stack detection

Get an AI-ready project summary

The --llm flag (shorthand for --format llm) produces a structured plain-text summary designed for pasting into an AI prompt:

tree2guide . --llm

Output includes:

Detected language/framework stack (Python, Node.js, Go, Rust, Flutter, Docker, and more)
Total file and directory counts
Top-level layout at a glance
Notable flags (tests directory, CI config, .env.example, LICENSE, CHANGELOG, etc.)
The full directory tree

No API key, no network call, no cost — all rule-based and instant.

Add a title heading

tree2guide . --title "My Project Structure"

Adds # My Project Structure above the tree in markdown/html, or a plain label in text/llm output.

Limit depth for large repos

tree2guide . --max-depth 3

Stops recursion after 3 levels — useful for getting a high-level overview of a large monorepo without drowning in detail.

Skip hidden files

tree2guide . --no-hidden

Skips any file or folder whose name starts with . without needing .tree2ignore entries for them.

Show only directories (or only files)

tree2guide . --dirs-only    # folder skeleton only
tree2guide . --files-only   # files only (parent dirs shown as scaffolding)

Control sort order

tree2guide . --sort dirs-first    # default
tree2guide . --sort files-first
tree2guide . --sort alpha         # strict alphabetical, ignores type

Use a custom output path

tree2guide . -o ./docs/structure.md

Use a custom exclude file

tree2guide . --exclude-file ./ci/scan-rules.ignore

tree2guide . --no-footer

Removes the attribution line from markdown and HTML output.