How do I install the Discard Whitespace Hunks skill?

Run npx skillmds@latest add akaihola/discard-whitespace-hunks in your terminal (requires Node.js), paste this page's agent-chat prompt into Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-connected agent, or download the SKILL.md file and copy it into your agent's skills directory.

Is Discard Whitespace Hunks safe to use?

This skill has not completed SkillMD's automated safety review yet. Capability flags: executes scripts. SkillMD never runs a skill's scripts for you; review the SKILL.md before installing.

Which AI agents work with Discard Whitespace Hunks?

This skill is tagged as working with Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex. SKILL.md is an open format, so most agents that read a skills directory can load it too.

Is Discard Whitespace Hunks free to use?

Yes. Installing skills from SkillMD is free, and the skill stays under its author's original license.

Who published Discard Whitespace Hunks?

akaihola (@akaihola) published this skill. Their other Agent Skills are listed on their SkillMD profile.

Discard Whitespace Hunks by akaihola

Name: Discard Whitespace Hunks
Rating: 4.2 (5 reviews)
Author: akaihola

Discard Whitespace Hunks

Discard whitespace-only diff hunks from the git working tree while preserving real content changes. Use this skill whenever the user asks to clean up whitespace noise in a git diff, discard formatting-only changes, remove whitespace/indentation/line-break-only hunks, strip cosmetic diff noise, or keep only meaningful changes in unstaged modifications. Also use it when the user says things like "my diff is full of whitespace junk" or "I only want the real changes" or "drop the reformatting hunks".

akaihola Updated Sep 10, 2026

File contents

Discard Whitespace-Only Diff Hunks

Remove all unstaged diff hunks whose only effect is whitespace, indentation, or line-break reformatting — keeping hunks that change actual content.

What counts as "whitespace-only"

A hunk is whitespace-only when the removed lines and added lines, after concatenation and removal of all whitespace characters (spaces, tabs, newlines), produce the same string. This catches:

Pure indentation changes (tabs ↔ spaces, indent level)
Line-break reformatting (one long line → multiple short lines or vice-versa)
Trailing whitespace additions/removals
Blank line additions/removals
Any combination of the above

Procedure

1. Check for unstaged changes

git diff --stat

If there's nothing, stop — nothing to do.

2. Restore files that are entirely whitespace changes

Compare regular diff against whitespace-ignoring diff at the file level:

git diff --stat          # all changes
git diff -w --stat       # non-whitespace changes only

Files that appear in the first but not the second are entirely whitespace — restore them:

git checkout -- <file>

3. Find and discard whitespace-only hunks in mixed files

For files that appear in both diffs (they have a mix of real and whitespace-only hunks), run the bundled Python script:

python3 <skill-dir>/scripts/discard_ws_hunks.py

The script:

Parses git diff output into per-file, per-hunk structures.
Classifies each hunk: concatenate all removed lines (without the leading -) and all added lines (without the leading +), strip every whitespace character from both, and compare. If identical → whitespace-only.
Builds a patch containing only the whitespace-only hunks.
Applies it in reverse (git apply --reverse) to undo just those hunks.

4. Verify

git diff --stat

Confirm the remaining diff is smaller and all hunks are substantive.

Edge cases

Staged changes: This procedure only touches the working tree (unstaged changes). Staged hunks are not affected.
New/deleted files: Files that are fully added or fully deleted have no "whitespace-only" hunks by definition — they're left alone.
Binary files: Skipped automatically (no text diff to parse).
Mixed indentation in context lines: The reverse-apply uses exact context matching, so it works correctly as long as the working tree hasn't been modified between generating and applying the patch. Don't edit files between steps 3 and 4.

---name: discard-whitespace-hunksdescription: Discard whitespace-only diff hunks from the git working tree while preserving real content changes. Use this skill whenever the user asks to clean up whitespace noise in a git diff, discard formatting-only changes, remove whitespace/indentation/line-break-only hunks, strip cosmetic diff noise, or keep only meaningful changes in unstaged modifications. Also use it when the user says things like "my diff is full of whitespace junk" or "I only want the real changes" or "drop the reformatting hunks".---# Discard Whitespace-Only Diff HunksRemove all unstaged diff hunks whose only effect is whitespace, indentation, orline-break reformatting — keeping hunks that change actual content.## What counts as "whitespace-only"A hunk is whitespace-only when the removed lines and added lines, after**concatenation and removal of all whitespace characters** (spaces, tabs,newlines), produce the **same string**. This catches:- Pure indentation changes (tabs ↔ spaces, indent level)- Line-break reformatting (one long line → multiple short lines or vice-versa)- Trailing whitespace additions/removals- Blank line additions/removals- Any combination of the above## Procedure### 1. Check for unstaged changes```bashgit diff --stat```If there's nothing, stop — nothing to do.### 2. Restore files that are entirely whitespace changesCompare regular diff against whitespace-ignoring diff at the file level:```bashgit diff --stat # all changesgit diff -w --stat # non-whitespace changes only```Files that appear in the first but **not** the second are entirely whitespace —restore them:```bashgit checkout -- <file>```### 3. Find and discard whitespace-only hunks in mixed filesFor files that appear in both diffs (they have a mix of real and whitespace-onlyhunks), run the bundled Python script:```bashpython3 <skill-dir>/scripts/discard_ws_hunks.py```The script:1. Parses `git diff` output into per-file, per-hunk structures.2. Classifies each hunk: concatenate all removed lines (without the leading `-`) and all added lines (without the leading `+`), strip every whitespace character from both, and compare. If identical → whitespace-only.3. Builds a patch containing only the whitespace-only hunks.4. Applies it in reverse (`git apply --reverse`) to undo just those hunks.### 4. Verify```bashgit diff --stat```Confirm the remaining diff is smaller and all hunks are substantive.## Edge cases- **Staged changes**: This procedure only touches the working tree (unstaged changes). Staged hunks are not affected.- **New/deleted files**: Files that are fully added or fully deleted have no "whitespace-only" hunks by definition — they're left alone.- **Binary files**: Skipped automatically (no text diff to parse).- **Mixed indentation in context lines**: The reverse-apply uses exact context matching, so it works correctly as long as the working tree hasn't been modified between generating and applying the patch. Don't edit files between steps 3 and 4.

Frequently asked questions