diff --git a/kittens/diff/highlight.py b/kittens/diff/highlight.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e455d018d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/kittens/diff/highlight.py
@@ -0,0 +1,87 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+# vim:fileencoding=utf-8
+# License: GPL v3 Copyright: 2018, Kovid Goyal <kovid at kovidgoyal.net>
+
+from pygments import highlight
+from pygments.formatter import Formatter
+from pygments.lexers import get_lexer_for_filename
+from pygments.util import ClassNotFound
+
+from kitty.rgb import color_as_sgr, parse_sharp
+
+
+class DiffFormatter(Formatter):
+
+    def __init__(self, style='default'):
+        Formatter.__init__(self, style=style)
+        self.styles = {}
+        for token, style in self.style:
+            start = []
+            end = []
+            # a style item is a tuple in the following form:
+            # colors are readily specified in hex: 'RRGGBB'
+            if style['color']:
+                start.append('38' + color_as_sgr(parse_sharp(style['color'])))
+                end.append('39')
+            if style['bold']:
+                start.append('1')
+                end.append('22')
+            if style['italic']:
+                start.append('3')
+                end.append('23')
+            if style['underline']:
+                start.append('4')
+                end.append('24')
+            if start:
+                start = '\033[{}m'.format(';'.join(start))
+                end = '\033[{}m'.format(';'.join(end))
+            self.styles[token] = start or '', end or ''
+
+    def format(self, tokensource, outfile):
+        for ttype, value in tokensource:
+            not_found = True
+            if value != '\n':
+                while ttype and not_found:
+                    tok = self.styles.get(ttype)
+                    if tok is None:
+                        ttype = ttype[:-1]
+                    else:
+                        on, off = tok
+                        lines = value.split('\n')
+                        for line in lines:
+                            if line:
+                                outfile.write(on + line + off)
+                            if line is not lines[-1]:
+                                outfile.write('\n')
+                        not_found = False
+
+            if not_found:
+                outfile.write(value)
+
+
+formatter = None
+
+
+def initialize_highlighter(style='default'):
+    global formatter
+    formatter = DiffFormatter(style)
+
+
+def highlight_data(code, filename):
+    try:
+        lexer = get_lexer_for_filename(filename, stripnl=False)
+    except ClassNotFound:
+        pass
+    else:
+        return highlight(code, lexer, formatter)
+
+
+def main():
+    # kitty +runpy "from kittens.diff.highlight import main; main()" file
+    import sys
+    initialize_highlighter()
+    with open(sys.argv[-1]) as f:
+        highlighted = highlight_data(f.read(), f.name)
+    if highlighted is None:
+        raise SystemExit('Unknown filetype: {}'.format(sys.argv[-1]))
+    print(highlighted)