straight-overview

A read-only overview and selective-upgrade UI for packages managed by straight.el.

straight-pull-all is all-or-nothing. straight-overview answers a different question — which of my packages have newer commits upstream, and how far behind am I? — and lets you upgrade only the ones you choose, dired-style.

M-x straight-overview

opens a buffer with one row per git-managed package:

Pin	Package	Installed	Branch	Behind	Tag	Remote
	consult	a1b2c3d	main	(3; 14d)	1.9	https://github.com/minad/consult

The Behind column shows (<commits>; <time>) — how many commits and how much wall-clock time your installed checkout is behind the tracked upstream branch. By default only outdated packages are listed.

Motivation

straight.el is a wonderful package manager, but its upgrade story is coarse-grained: straight-pull-all updates everything at once. If you only want the latest Magit but would rather not move thirty other packages on the same day, you have to fall back to upgrading them one by one by name — with no overview of what actually has updates waiting, or how far behind you are.

straight-overview fills that gap. It gives you a single, at-a-glance buffer of exactly which packages are behind upstream and by how much, and lets you upgrade (or deliberately hold) just the ones you choose — without leaving Emacs, and without adopting a different package manager. Everything is built on top of straight's own data and commands; it adds a UI, not a new model.

Design

• Opens instantly. The list is built from local git refs — no network call when you open it. The "behind" figures reflect the last time each remote was fetched.
• Fetch is explicit and decoupled. Press G to run straight-fetch-all and refresh against live remotes. You decide when to pay the network cost, not the act of opening the list.
• Selective, dired-style upgrades. Mark the packages you want, then execute. No more updating 100 packages to get the one you cared about.
• Pinning (holds). Pin a package to hold it: it stays visible (faded, with a * in the Pin column) but can't be marked for update, so you won't pull it by accident. Pinning records the installed commit, and R resets the package back to it. This is a UI-level hold — it's independent of straight's own straight-freeze-versions lockfile and doesn't affect straight-pull-all.

Installation

straight-overview requires a working straight.el. With use-package:

(use-package straight-overview
  :straight (:host github :repo "alberti42/straight-overview")
  :commands (straight-overview))

Or directly:

(straight-use-package
 '(straight-overview :host github :repo "alberti42/straight-overview"))

Requires Emacs 29.1+.

Keybindings

Key	Action
m	mark package at point for update
u	unmark
U	unmark all
M	mark all outdated packages
x	pull marked packages (and rebuild, if enabled)
P	pin the package at point at its current commit (hold)
F	free (unpin) the package at point
R	restore the package at point to its pinned commit (no-op if unpinned)
c	show changelog (HEAD..upstream) for package at point — a magit-log buffer when Magit is available (each commit actionable), else a plain git log listing
o / RET	open the package's repo in a browser
a	toggle outdated-only / show all packages
g	re-scan from local refs (no fetch)
G	straight-fetch-all, then re-scan

Standard tabulated-list-mode keys also apply (sort by clicking a column header, etc.).

Customization

Variable	Default	Meaning
straight-overview-fetch-on-open	nil	nil opens instantly (fetch later with G); ask prompts y/n; t always fetches first. A prefix arg (C-u M-x straight-overview) forces a fetch for one invocation.
straight-overview-show	outdated	outdated shows only behind packages; all shows everything. Toggle live with a.
straight-overview-changelog-use-magit	t	When t and Magit is loaded, c opens a magit-log buffer. Set to nil to always use the plain git log listing even if Magit is installed (useful for debugging the built-in path).
straight-overview-build-on-pull	nil	nil pulls only — straight rebuilds the modified repos on the next Emacs restart. t also runs straight-rebuild-package immediately, doing everything in one go. Also governs whether R rebuilds in-session.
straight-overview-pinned-file	nil	When set to a path, pinned packages persist there as an .eld alist of (name . commit). When nil, pinning is session-only.

The overview opens in the selected window by default. Because it is shown via display-buffer, you can place it anywhere with display-buffer-alist, keyed on the buffer name *straight-overview*. For example, to open it in a side window at the bottom:

(add-to-list 'display-buffer-alist
             '("\\`\\*straight-overview\\*\\'"
               (display-buffer-in-side-window)
               (side . bottom) (window-height . 0.4)))

Notes & limitations

• "Latest stable" vs "unstable". straight has no stable/unstable concept — it tracks one branch. The Behind column reflects that branch's tip; the Tag column shows git describe --tags as the closest stand-in for a stable release (blank for untagged packages).
• Fetch is synchronous. straight-fetch-all (via G) blocks Emacs while it contacts every remote. Asynchronous fetching is a planned improvement.
• Shallow clones. Commit counts and changelogs assume full clones (straight's default — straight-vc-git-default-clone-depth = full). If a package was cloned shallow, those figures may be truncated.
• Restore is a hard reset. R reattaches to the tracked branch and runs git reset --hard to the pinned commit, so any uncommitted local changes in that repo are discarded (straight clones are normally pristine). It asks for confirmation first.

Related packages and acknowledgements

straight-overview was directly inspired by a Reddit discussion about wanting targeted, informed package upgrades. Credit and thanks to the projects that explored this space first:

• subtree-package by David J. Rosenbaum — the immediate inspiration. Its package list, which highlights upgradable packages and shows how far each is behind upstream as (<commits behind>; <time behind>), is exactly where this package's Behind column comes from. subtree-package takes a more ambitious approach (it manages packages as git subtrees vendored into your own repository); straight-overview borrows the presentation but stays a thin UI over straight.el.
• straight.el by Radian LLC — the package manager this is built on. All the heavy lifting (straight-fetch-all, straight-pull-package, straight-rebuild-package, the version lockfiles) is straight's; this package only adds an interface.
• package.el's list-packages (built into Emacs) and Dired — the dired-style marking idiom (m/u/U, mark-then-execute) that the upgrade and pin workflow follows.

License

GNU General Public License v3.0 or later.

Copyright (C) 2025-2026 Andrea Alberti.