# Difftastic Structural Syntax Aware Diff Tool > Difftastic is a structural diff tool that compares files based on their syntax rather than line-by-line text. Written in Rust with 24k+ GitHub stars, it understands 30+ programming languages and integrates directly with Git and Mercurial. Use when this capability is needed. - Skill: `tomevault-io/difftastic-structural-syntax-aware-diff-tool` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add tomevault-io/difftastic-structural-syntax-aware-diff-tool` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/tomevault-io/difftastic-structural-syntax-aware-diff-tool/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Coding & Dev Tools - Author: tomevault-io (https://skillmd.com/u/tomevault-io) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/tomevault-io/difftastic-structural-syntax-aware-diff-tool --- # Difftastic Structural Syntax-Aware Diff Tool Difftastic is a structural diff tool that compares files based on their syntax rather than line-by-line text. Written in Rust with 24k+ GitHub stars, it understands 30+ programming languages and integrates directly with Git and Mercurial. ## Installation Requirements and caveats from upstream: - significant, but merging requires tracking whitespace. Basic usage or getting-started notes: - [with mercurial](https://difftastic.wilfred.me.uk/mercurial.html). - If you're an Emacs user, check out [this blog - post](https://tsdh.org/posts/2022-08-01-difftastic-diffing-with-magit.html) - Source: https://github.com/Wilfred/difftastic - Extracted from upstream docs: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Wilfred/difftastic/HEAD/README.md ## Source - [Agent Skill Exchange](https://agentskillexchange.com/skills/difftastic-structural-syntax-diff/) --- > Source: [agentskillexchange/skills](https://github.com/agentskillexchange/skills) — distributed by [TomeVault](https://tomevault.io).