bulkfilepr

Welcome to the bulkfilepr documentation. bulkfilepr is a command-line tool for batch-updating standardized files across many local GitHub repositories.

What is bulkfilepr?

bulkfilepr makes a very specific kind of maintenance work fast, safe, and repeatable: rolling out the exact same file-level change across lots of repositories without manually opening each repo, creating branches, copying files, committing, pushing, and filing pull requests.

It targets standardized “shared surface area” files like:

  • GitHub workflows (.github/workflows/*.yml)
  • CODEOWNERS files
  • Issue and PR templates
  • Dockerfiles
  • Lint configurations (.eslintrc, .golangci.yml, etc.)
  • Other standardized artifacts where consistency matters

Key Features

  • Conservative by design: The tool discovers the repository’s default branch, refuses to operate on anything but a clean working tree of that default branch, and supports modes that allow updates only when a file exists or when it matches an expected fingerprint.

  • Dry run support: Can be used as a “what would change” audit step before making actual changes.

  • Clean PR workflow: Produces a clean, reviewable PR using the same git and GitHub CLI flow you would do by hand.

Documentation

  • Installation - How to install bulkfilepr on various platforms
  • Usage - Detailed command-line reference and mode explanations
  • Examples - Common usage patterns and examples

Quick Example 

# Update a CI workflow file across a repo
bulkfilepr apply \
  --mode upsert \
  --repo-path .github/workflows/ci.yml \
  --new-file ~/standards/ci.yml

This will:

  1. Check that you’re on the default branch with a clean working tree
  2. Create a new branch (e.g., bulkfilepr/a1b2c3d4e5f6)
  3. Copy the new file content to .github/workflows/ci.yml
  4. Commit the changes
  5. Push to origin
  6. Create a pull request
  7. Switch back to the default branch