Meaning
Technology that tracks and transmits only meaningful code changes rather than complete files, optimizing token usage and reducing costs.
Definition
Current vibe coding often requires sending entire files for context, consuming many tokens. Semantic diffing identifies what actually changed semantically (logic, functionality, architecture) versus syntactic changes (formatting, comments, whitespace). This dramatically reduces token consumption, enables working with larger codebases, and makes long development sessions more practical.
Example
Instead of re-sending a 500-line file where only one function changed, semantic diffing transmits: “Function `calculateTotal` on line 245 changed from using `reduce` to `for loop` for performance” with just the relevant code snippet. AI understands the change while consuming 90% fewer tokens than re-processing the entire file.
