Note

SourceTree Custom Action

Last updated

SourceTreeGitmacOS

I needed to send a co-worker a zip of a specific commit while I was on PTO. The goal was a package they could unzip at the project root and get only the modified files in the correct directory structure — not a full git archive, just the diff as files.

Unzipping at the project root gives you only what changed, with paths intact:

docroot/
└── web/
    └── app/
        └── themes/
            └── mytheme/
                ├── functions.php
                ├── inc/
                │   ├── acf.php
                │   └── cors.php
                ├── index.php
                └── style.css

The script

SourceTree runs external scripts. Save this as git-zip-commit.sh somewhere stable (e.g. your home folder):

# Ensure we have a commit hash
if [ -z "$1" ]; then
    echo "Error: No commit hash provided."
    exit 1
fi

COMMIT_SHA="$1"

# 1. Added "-m" to support merge commits
# 2. Capture the file list into a variable first
FILES=$(git diff-tree -r --no-commit-id --name-only --diff-filter=d -m "$COMMIT_SHA")

# Check if the file list is empty
if [ -z "$FILES" ]; then
    echo "Error: No modified files found for commit $COMMIT_SHA."
    echo "This prevents zipping the entire repository by mistake."
    exit 1
fi

# Run the archive command only with the specific files
git archive -o patch.zip "$COMMIT_SHA" $FILES

echo "Success! Created patch.zip with only modified files."

Make it executable:

chmod +x /path/to/git-zip-commit.sh

Configure SourceTree

  1. Open SourceTree → Preferences (Mac) or Tools → Options (Windows).
  2. Go to the Custom Actions tab and click Add.
  3. Set:
    • Menu Caption: Zip Commit for Deployment
    • Script to Run: path to git-zip-commit.sh
    • Parameters: $SHA
  4. Click OK.

How to use it

Right-click the commit you want to package in the history graph.

SourceTree commit history with a commit selected and the context menu open
Right-click any commit in the log.

Hover Custom Actions and choose Zip Commit for Deployment.

SourceTree Custom Actions submenu with Zip Commit for Deployment highlighted
Your custom action appears in the submenu.

SourceTree writes patch.zip to your repository root.

Optional: timestamped filenames

To avoid overwriting previous patches, change the archive line in the script to:

git archive -o "patch-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M)-${COMMIT_SHA:0:7}.zip" "$COMMIT_SHA" $FILES