diff --git a/repl/src/evaluate.ts b/repl/src/evaluate.ts
index 87191bd8..f08d0d80 100644
--- a/repl/src/evaluate.ts
+++ b/repl/src/evaluate.ts
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ import './tone';
 import './midi';
 import './voicings';
 import './tonal';
+import gist from './gist.js';
 import shapeshifter from './shapeshifter';
 import { minify } from './parse';
 import * as Tone from 'tone';
@@ -27,7 +28,7 @@ hackLiteral(String, ['mini', 'm'], bootstrapped.mini); // comment out this line
 hackLiteral(String, ['pure', 'p'], bootstrapped.pure); // comment out this line if you panic
 
 // this will add everything to global scope, which is accessed by eval
-Object.assign(globalThis, bootstrapped, Tone, toneHelpers);
+Object.assign(globalThis, bootstrapped, Tone, toneHelpers, { gist });
 
 export const evaluate: any = async (code: string) => {
   const shapeshifted = shapeshifter(code); // transform syntactically correct js code to semantically usable code
diff --git a/repl/src/gist.js b/repl/src/gist.js
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..716f797f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/repl/src/gist.js
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+// this is a shortcut to eval code from a gist
+// why? to be able to shorten strudel code + e.g. be able to change instruments after links have been generated
+export default (route) =>
+  fetch(`https://gist.githubusercontent.com/${route}?cachebust=${Date.now()}`)
+    .then((res) => res.text())
+    .then((code) => eval(code));