aicodeprep-gui: The fast context maker

Context Engineering basically.. but made effortless! prepare and share project code with any AI model, on any OS, from any editor.

Manually copying and pasting files into AI chatbots is slow, error-prone, and kills your workflow. aicodeprep-gui solves this with a sleek, powerful, and blazing-fast desktop application that makes preparing code context a one-click process.

It is platform-independent (Windows, macOS, Linux) and IDE-independent. Use it alongside VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, or any other editor. It doesn't replace your agentic workflow; it works along side it, user-curated context every time.

AI models get 'dumbed down' the more irrelevant text that gets sent with your prompt - like when you are trying to fix a bug, agents (like Cursor, Cline, etc) will send huge giant pages of text about MCP servers, how to edit files etc all of that is not related to your bug. When you use the web chat interfaces, it is clean without any tools, no MCP stuff etc and it can 100% focus on your task.

This tool allows you to go from project ---> web chat very fast. It is designed to remove that friction. All the features are to save time and save you from having to do repetitive things.

The aicodeprep-gui Workflow

The core philosophy is simple: You know your code best. Instead of letting a "dumber" IDE agent guess which files are relevant, aicodeprep-gui puts you in control with a smart, intuitive UI.

1. Launch Instantly:

   • Right-click any folder in your File Explorer, Finder, or Nautilus and select "Open with aicodeprep-gui".
   • or Pop open a terminal and type aicp and press Enter.

2. Review Smart Selection: The app opens instantly, having already pre-selected the most relevant files based on a .gitignore-style configuration.

3. Fine-tune & Prompt: Quickly check/uncheck files, use powerful prompt presets (like one for Cline), or write a custom question.

4. Generate & Paste: Click "GENERATE CONTEXT!". The entire code bundle and your prompt are instantly copied to your clipboard, ready to be pasted into ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Openrouter, or any other AI model.

5. Smarter AI responses and abilities: Whenever you rely on IDE extensions or agentic IDEs to do everything, they feed too much crap into the AI which always seems to reduce its intelligence. You end up needing to use Claude for everything even minor bugs, which gets expensive. With this tool, you can use the web chat interfaces for the hard/difficult stuff, bug fixing, planning, and then paste the result back into the agent set to use a cheap unlimited model, to make the actual file changes.

✨ Key Features

• 🚀 Seamless OS Integration: The only tool of its kind with optional, native right-click context menu integration for Windows File Explorer, macOS Finder, and Linux Nautilus.
• 💻 Truly Cross-Platform: A single, consistent experience on Windows, macOS (Intel & Apple Silicon), and major Linux distributions.
• ⌨️ Simple & Fast Commands: Launch from anywhere by simply typing aicp in your terminal. Pass a directory (aicp ./my-project) or run it in the current folder.
• 🧠 Intelligent File Scanning:
  • Uses a powerful .gitignore-style pattern system (aicodeprep-gui.toml) to smartly include/exclude files.
  • Blazing-fast startup thanks to lazy-loading, which skips huge directories like node_modules/ or venv/ until you need them.
  • Remembers your file selections, window size, and layout on a per-project basis in a local .aicodeprep-gui file.
• 🎨 Unique & Polished UI:
  • A clean, modern interface built with PySide6.
  • Automatic Light/Dark mode detection that syncs with your OS, plus a manual toggle.
  • Satisfying, custom-styled UI components, including an intuitive file tree with hover effects.
  • Real-time token counter to help you stay within context limits.
• 🔧 Powerful Prompt Engineering:
  • Create, save, and manage global prompt presets that are available across all your projects.
  • Comes with useful defaults for debugging, security analysis, or generating prompts for AI agents like Cline.
• 🌐 IDE & Agent Agnostic:
  • This is not another IDE plugin. It's a standalone utility that enhances your workflow with any tool.
  • Perfect for preparing context for agent-based IDEs like Cursor or Windsurf, or for direct use in web-based chatbots.

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Installation

The TL;DR version: Make sure python is installed on your system, then install pipx. Just google how to do that or ask AI etc. Then open a fresh terminal/cmd window and type:

pipx install aicodeprep-gui

Mac

# Install pipx using Homebrew
brew install pipx

# Add pipx to your PATH
pipx ensurepath

(then close/open a fresh new terminal window)

pipx install aicodeprep-gui

Windows

Download python from python.org - pick one of the stable versions, 3.13.x is good.

Make sure the button for adding python.exe to path is turned on):

Then try:

py -m pip install --user pipx
py -m pipx ensurepath

(if py doesn't work, try 'python' or 'python3')

Close that terminal window, and open a fresh new one (very important after installing pipx

pipx install aicodeprep-gui

It should say success or something similar or done.

Now that it is installed, you can type 'aicp' + enter in a terminal to run it, or 'aicp path/to/folder/'

also aicodeprep-gui command works instead of aicp - but aicp is shorter, both do the same thing (open the app window in whichever folder you typed it)

A common thing would be when you are using VS Code or Cursor, and whichever agent / agentic coder is unable to do the task or is acting stupid, go to the VS Code terminal and type 'aicp' to open it for the project you are working on. Adjust which files are going to be included in the context, then press GENERATE CONTEXT!. Paste into AI chat.

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu instructions here but should work anywhere Python and Qt6 can work)

Update package lists and upgrade existing packages

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Install pip for Python 3

sudo apt install python3-pip -y

Install and Configure pipx

Now, use pip to install pipx. It's best to install it in your user space to avoid needing sudo for Python packages.

pip3 install --user pipx

pipx ensurepath

IMPORTANT: After running pipx ensurepath, you must close and reopen your terminal for the PATH changes to take effect.

In a new terminal, type:

pipx install aicodeprep-gui

File Explorer Integration (Optional, Recommended)

For the ultimate workflow, add the right-click menu item after installing:

1. Run the application (aicp).
2. Go to the File menu in the top-left corner.
3. Select "Install Right-Click Menu..." (or the equivalent for your OS).
4. Follow the on-screen instructions. A UAC prompt may appear on Windows, as this requires administrator rights.

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Usage

The GUI Way

1. Launch: Right-click a project folder or type aicp in a terminal inside the folder.
2. Select: Review the automatically selected files. The app will remember your choices for the next time you open it in this folder.
3. Prompt (Optional): Click a preset button or type a question in the prompt box.
4. Generate: Click GENERATE CONTEXT!.
5. Paste: Your context is now on your clipboard. Paste it into your AI of choice.

The Command Line

While the GUI is the main feature, you can use these command-line options:

# Run in the current directory
aicp

# Run in a specific directory
aicodeprep-gui /path/to/your/project

# See all options
aicp --help

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Configuration

aicodeprep-gui is powerful out of the box, but you can customize its behavior by creating an aicodeprep-gui.toml file in your project's root directory. This allows you to override the default filters.

Example aicodeprep-gui.toml:

# Set a different max file size in bytes
max_file_size = 2000000

# Override the default code extensions to check
code_extensions = [".py", ".js", ".ts", ".html", ".css", ".rs"]

# Add custom exclusion patterns (uses .gitignore syntax)
exclude_patterns = [
    "build/",
    "dist/",
    "*.log",
    "temp_*",
    "cache/"
]

# Add custom patterns for files that should always be checked by default
default_include_patterns = [
    "README.md",
    "main.py",
    "docs/architecture.md"
]

For a full list of default settings, see the default_config.toml in the source code.

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Contributing

Contributions, bug reports, and feature requests are welcome! Please feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request on GitHub. Or just email me your complaints! Happy to hear from you: tom@wuu73.org

Github Sponsors

Your github, or your website, name, can get listed somewhere, maybe in the app itself or website, on github, etc. Any amount helps. Can enable Pro mode forever as thanks. Moved to new state, mom is dying from stage 4 adenocarcinoma, been taking care of her and also coding lots of stuff like this app. Bills are high but can't work quite yet (well I am, just not a normal job). Any money would go towards the basics to keep the lights on etc and for anything related to this. Also seeing people send dollars just motivates me to do better and want to make other useful things.

Been setting up Stripe but want to spend time reading all the docs and make sure I do everything correct - seen a lot of people that get banned posting about it and I don't ever want that to happen. I have it on Gumroad, but can take cryptocurrency, cashapp, apple pay, github sponsor button, etc

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Support & Donations

If this tool saves you time and makes your life easier, consider supporting its development.

Method	Address / Link
Bitcoin	bc1qut8nz74hlwztckdghlg0jxan5gnwyqmzkr9c94
Litecoin	ltc1q3z327a3ea22mlhtawmdjxmwn69n65a32fek2s4
Monero	46FzbFckBy9bbExzwAifMPBheYFb37k8ghGWSHqc6wE1BiEz6rQc2f665JmqUdtv1baRmuUEcDoJ2dpqY6Msa3uCKArszQZ
CashApp	$lightweb73
Website	https://wuu73.org/hello.html

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Bitcoin QR Code (same address as above):

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License

This software uses a Sustainable License:

• ✅ Free for personal and commercial use
• ✅ Keep and modify source code
• ✅ Use app output commercially without restrictions
• ❌ Cannot sell/redistribute this software
• ❌ Cannot offer this as a hosted service

Full license details