pact edit

Edit your pact configuration files locally or open the web editor.

Usage

pact edit [path]

Arguments

Examples

Edit pact.json

pact edit

Opens .pact/pact.json in your default editor.

Edit a specific file

pact edit shell/zshrc        # Edit shell config
pact edit editor/nvim/init.lua  # Edit nvim config
pact edit prompts/default.md    # Edit AI prompt

Open web editor

pact edit web

Opens the Pact web editor in your browser, where you can:

• Browse all your config files
• Edit with syntax highlighting
• Visual JSON editing for pact.json
• Push changes directly to GitHub

Editor Selection

Pact selects an editor in this order:

1. $EDITOR environment variable
2. $VISUAL environment variable
3. vim (if available)
4. nano (if available)
5. vi (fallback)

Set your preferred editor

# In your shell config (.zshrc, .bashrc, etc.)
export EDITOR="code --wait"   # VS Code
export EDITOR="nvim"          # Neovim
export EDITOR="cursor --wait" # Cursor
export EDITOR="nano"          # Nano

For VS Code or Cursor, use the --wait flag so pact knows when you're done editing.

Web Editor

The web editor provides:

• File browser: Navigate your entire pact repo
• Syntax highlighting: JSON, YAML, Markdown, and more
• Live validation: Catch JSON errors before saving
• Section navigation: Jump to specific modules in pact.json
• One-click push: Commit and push without leaving the browser
• AI integration: Open configs in Claude, ChatGPT, or other AI assistants

Environment Variable

You can change the web editor URL:

export PACT_WEB_URL="https://your-custom-pact-web.com"

Default: https://pact-ckn.pages.dev

Workflow: Local Editing

# Edit your shell config
pact edit shell/zshrc

# Make your changes in the editor...

# Push changes to GitHub
pact push -m "Update shell aliases"

# On another machine, pull the changes
pact sync shell

Workflow: Web Editing

# Open web editor
pact edit web

# Make changes in the browser...
# Click "Push to GitHub"

# On your machine, sync the changes
pact sync

Creating New Files

To create a new file, you can either:

1. Create manually: Add the file to .pact/ then update pact.json
2. Web editor: Use the web interface to create new files

# Create a new prompt file
touch .pact/prompts/code-review.md
pact edit prompts/code-review.md

# Update pact.json to reference it
pact edit

Troubleshooting

"EDITOR not set"

Set the EDITOR environment variable in your shell config:

export EDITOR="nvim"

Web editor doesn't open

Make sure you have a default browser configured. On Linux, you may need to set $BROWSER:

export BROWSER="firefox"

File not found

Make sure the path is relative to .pact/:

# Correct
pact edit shell/zshrc

# Incorrect
pact edit .pact/shell/zshrc
pact edit ~/.pact/shell/zshrc