Tower 18 for Mac (Beta) — A Better Command Line Experience

We are well aware that Tower is, first and foremost, a visual tool. Many of you chose Tower precisely because you'd rather not spend your day typing Git commands — and that's not changing anytime soon!

But something has changed: thanks to AI coding agents like Claude Code and Codex, even the most devoted GUI fans are now spending more and more time in the terminal. You kick off a task, the agent does its thing... and then you want to actually see what happened.

That's where Tower shines, so we felt the path from the terminal to Tower deserved a serious upgrade. With Tower 18, the Tower Command Line Tool (gittower) is no longer just a way to open a repository — it takes you to exactly the place you want to look at.

The idea is simple: stay in the terminal until the moment you want to look at something, and a single command takes you there. You don't even have to type it yourself! Install our Agent Skill and simply ask your AI agent to "show me this in Tower" 😉

Let's dive in!

Getting Started

After updating to Tower 18, head over to Tower's Settings → Integration tab and look for the "Tower Command Line Tool" row. If you see an Update button, click it and enter your admin password.

Never installed the command line tool before? You will see an Install button instead — the steps are exactly the same.

Next, open your terminal and run:

gittower --version

The output should match Tower's version and build number exactly — for example, 18.0 (561).

And here's the good news: this is the last time you'll need to do this 😁
Previously, Tower copied the command line tool into /usr/local/bin, which meant that every Tower update left you with an outdated copy (and a notification asking you to reinstall it).

Tower now installs a link that always points to the Tower app itself, so the command line tool is updated automatically every time Tower is.

What You Can Now Do in the Terminal

Before we start, one important note: gittower is a launcher, not a Git client. It never commits, pushes, or changes your files — every command either opens a repository in Tower or opens it at a particular view.

Open Any Repository

The classic! Type this from anywhere inside your project — even from a subfolder, as Tower will find the repository root for you:

gittower .

You can also open a repository located elsewhere, or simply name a file to open the repository it belongs to:

gittower ~/Projects/my-app
gittower src/Parser.swift

Jump to History and Specific Commits

Open the History view — for the whole repository, a branch, a tag, or a single file:

gittower history
gittower history feature/login
gittower history v1.1
gittower history src/Parser.swift

You can even use Git's own <revision>:<file> notation to see a file's history as of an older revision:

gittower history v1.0:src/Parser.swift

Spotted an interesting commit while reading git log? Paste its hash and Tower will open History with that commit already selected. Full hashes, HEAD~3, tags — any revision Git understands will do.

gittower commit 9f8a4b4

Blame, Now and Then

Want to know who wrote a particular line? Instead of switching to Tower, finding the repository, finding the file, and opening Blame, just type:

gittower blame src/Parser.swift

Tower comes forward with that file's blame already open. And, just like with History, you can travel back in time:

gittower blame v1.0:src/Parser.swift

Same file, two points in its life, one command apart!

Review Your Working Copy and Stashes

This is the one we expect you'll use the most. Your AI agent has just finished its work, and you'd like to review the changes in a proper diff view before committing? That's one command away:

gittower working-copy

If your fingers are used to typing git status, gittower status works too.

And your stashes are just as easy to reach:

gittower stashes

Branches Review, Pre-Filtered

The "Branches Review" view can be opened with filters, sorting, and search already applied. For example, to see only stale branches, or only those that won't merge cleanly:

gittower branches-review --filter stale
gittower branches-review --filter conflicts

You can also compare a specific branch against another, sort by recent activity, or prefill the search field:

gittower branches-review --branch feature/login --base main
gittower branches-review --sort last-updated --desc
gittower branches-review --search feature

Pull Requests, Settings, and Cloning

A few more handy shortcuts:

gittower pull-requests
gittower settings
gittower clone https://github.com/user/repo.git

The first opens the Pull Requests view (gittower prs also works), the second opens the repository's settings, and the third opens Tower's clone dialog with the URL already filled in.

Branch Parents and Stacked Branches

This is the only command that doesn't open Tower: gittower branch reads and writes Tower's branch information directly from the terminal.

Recording a branch's parent is especially handy when you work with AI agents. Created a branch for your agent to work on? Tell Tower where it came from (or simply ask your agent to do it for you):

gittower branch parent feature/demo-updates --set main

Tower will then show the branch's Fork Point in the History view: the commits your agent added sit right above it, while everything that came before is grayed out. No more guessing which commits are new! 😎

And if you are a fan of Stacked Branches, you can also read a branch's parent and stacking status, or stack it on its parent:

gittower branch parent feature/login
gittower branch stacked feature/login
gittower branch stacked feature/login --set

These values live in your repository's Git config, so Tower and the terminal always agree.

A Proper Command Line Citizen

We also put a lot of care into making gittower behave like a real Unix tool:

• Typos are recognized: type gittower histroy and it will ask if you meant history.
• It doesn't guess: if you have a branch and a file named release-notes, gittower will tell you and suggest how to be specific (./release-notes for the file, refs/heads/release-notes for the branch). Git's -- separator works too.
• Point it anywhere: every view command accepts -C <path>, just like Git, so you can target a repository without leaving your current folder.
• Meaningful exit codes: gittower follows standard Unix exit codes, so it behaves predictably in your scripts — and when an AI agent runs it for you.

To see everything it can do, run gittower --help, or gittower help <command> for the details on a specific command.

Teach Your AI Agent About gittower

Your AI agent doesn't know that gittower exists — yet! So we've put together an Agent Skill: a small Markdown file that tells your agent what the Tower Command Line Tool can do, and when it makes sense to use it.

Once it's installed, you can simply ask your agent to "show me the history of this file in Tower" or "open Branches Review with only the stale branches". Even better: when the agent finishes a task, it will offer to open the Working Copy in Tower, so you can review its changes in a proper diff view before anything gets committed 😎

To install it in Claude Code, save the file as ~/.claude/skills/tower-cli/SKILL.md — or let your terminal do it for you:

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/tower-cli && curl -fsSL https://www.git-tower.com/blog/assets/downloads/tower-cli/SKILL.md -o ~/.claude/skills/tower-cli/SKILL.md

The skill follows the open Agent Skills format, so it also works with other agents that support it, like Codex. Just place it in that agent's skills folder instead.

Other Improvements and Bug Fixes

As usual, we also took some time to implement improvements across the board:

• Command Line Tool: Tower no longer replaces a gittower command installed by another program (and asks before replacing a link you created yourself). The Integration settings also offer to update a tool left behind by an older Tower version, or repair one that broke because Tower was moved or renamed. Plus, cancelling the password prompt during installation no longer reports it as successful.
• Blame: Blame and the raw file view now follow HEAD when opened for a file, showing its state on the current branch instead of pinning it to a single commit. Blame also reports a failed load instead of showing an empty file.

We also fixed a couple of bugs! Here is what we addressed:

• Raw File View: Fixed the raw file view showing a file at an outdated revision after the file changed.
• New Window: Opening a repository in a new window no longer adds it as a tab to the existing window when macOS is set to prefer tabs.

We hope you enjoy this release! Happy committing! 😊

Not a Tower user yet? Download our 30-day free trial and experience a better way to work with Git!

PS: Did you know? Tower Pro is now free for students as well as teachers and educational institutions!