Git Issues

This is a minimalist distributed issue management system based on Git. It has the following advantages over other systems.

No backend You can install and use gi with a single shell script. There's no need for a server or a database back-end, and the corresponding problems and requirements for their administration.
Distributed asynchronous management Anyone can add, comment, and edit issues without requiring online access to a centralized server. There's no need for online connectivity; you can pull and push issues when you're online.
Transparent text file format Issues are stored as simple text files, which you can view, edit, share, and backup with any tool you like. There's no risk of loosing access to your issues because a server has failed.
Git based Issues are changed and shared through Git. This provides gi with a robust, efficient, portable, and widely available infrastructure. It allows you to reuse your Git credentials and infrastructure, allows the efficient merging of work, and also provides a solid audit trail regarding any changes. You can even use Git and command-line tools directly to make sophisticated changes to your issue database.

Installation

Clone the repo and register a git alias to the git-issue.sh script:

git config --global alias.issue '!'"${REPO_PATH}/git-issue.sh"

if you are using a bash shell, you can also register the autocompletion by adding the following to your .bashrc

source ${REPO_PATH}/gi-completion.sh

for backwards compatibility you can also use the 'old way' by coping gi.sh to someplace in your path, but you must register the git alias to use the auto completion feature

Simply copy the `gi` shell script somewhere in the system's path.
If you have administrative access you can install it with
`sudo install gi.sh /usr/local/bin/gi`.
For your personal use,
assuming that the directory `~/bin` exists and is in your path,
you can install it with `install gi.sh ~/bin/gi`.
You can even put `gi` in your project's current directory and run it from there.

The gi script has been tested on: Debian GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and Cygwin. If you're running gi on another system, run the test.sh script to verify its operation, and (please) update this file.

Use

You use gi with the following sub-commands.

git issue init: Create a new issues repository in the current directory.
git issue clone: Clone the specified remote repository.
git issue new: Create a new open issue with the specified summary.
git issue list: List the issues with the specified tag. By default this lists issues that are tagged as open.
git issue show: Show specified issue (and its comments with -c).
git issue comment: Add an issue comment.
git issue tag: Add (or remove with -r) a tag.
git issue assign: Assign (or reassign) an issue to a person. The person is specified with his/her email address. The form @name or name@ can be used as a shortcut, provided it uniquely identifies an existing assignee or committer.
git issue attach: Attach (or remove with -r) a file to an issue.
git issue watcher: Add (or remove with -r) an issue watcher.
git issue close: Remove the open tag from the issue, marking it as closed.
git issue edit: Edit the specified issue's summary or comment.
git issue help: Display help information about git issue.
git issue log: Output a log of changes made
git issue push: Update remote repository with local changes.
git issue pull: Update local repository with remote changes.
git issue git: Run the specified Git command on the issues repository.

Issues and comments are specified through the SHA hash associated with the commit that opened them.

Internals

All data are stored under .issues.
A .git directory contains the Git data associated with the issues.
A config file with configuration data.
A templates directory with message templates.
An issues directory contains the individual issues.
Each issue is stored in a directory named issues/xx/xxxxxxx..., where the x's are the SHA of the issue's initial commit.
Each issue can have the following elements in its directory.
- A description file with a one-line summary and a description of the issue.
- A comments directory where comments are stored.
- An attachments directory where issue's attachments are stored.
- A tags file containing the issue's tags, one in each line.
- A watchers file containing the emails of persons to be notified when the issue changes (one per line).
- An assignee file containing the email for the person assigned to the issue.

Project status

This is work in progress. The system has achieved the status of a minimal viable prototype: it can be used to manage issues.

Contributing

Contributions are welcomed through pull requests. Before working on a new feature please look at open issues, and if no corresponding issue is open, create one to claim priority over the task. Issues are managed with gi through the gi-issues repo.

Example session

You can view a video of the session on YouTube.

$ git issue init # Initialize issue repository
Initialized empty Issues repository in /home/dds/src/gi/.issues
$ git issue new -s 'New issue entered from the command line'
Added issue e6a95c9
$ git issue new # Create a new issue (opens editor window)
Added issue 7dfa5b7
$ git issue list # List open issues
7dfa5b7 An issue entered from the editor
e6a95c9 New issue entered from the command line
$ git issue comment e6a95c9 # Add an issue comment (opens editor window)
Added comment 8c0d5b3
$ git issue tag e6a9 urgent # Add tag to an issue
Added tag urgent
$ git issue tag e6a9 gui crash # Add two more tags
Added tag gui
Added tag crash
$ git issue tag -r e6a9 urgent # Remove a tag
Removed tag urgent
$ git issue assign e6a9 joe@example.com # Assign issue
Assigned to joe@example.com
$ git issue watcher e6a9 jane@example.com # Add issue watcher
Added watcher jane@example.com
$ git issue list gui # List issues tagged as gui
e6a95c9 New issue entered from the command line
$ # Push issues repository to a server
$ git issue git remote add origin git@github.com:dspinellis/gi-example.git
$ git issue git push -u origin master
Counting objects: 60, done.
Compressing objects: 100% (50/50), done.
Writing objects: 100% (60/60), 5.35 KiB | 0 bytes/s, done.
Total 60 (delta 8), reused 0 (delta 0)
To git@github.com:dspinellis/gi-example.git
 * [new branch]      master -> master
Branch master set up to track remote branch master from origin.


$ # Clone issues repository from server
$ git issue clone git@github.com:dspinellis/gi-example.git my-issues
Cloning into '.issues'...
remote: Counting objects: 60, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (42/42), done.
remote: Total 60 (delta 8), reused 60 (delta 8), pack-reused 0
Receiving objects: 100% (60/60), 5.35 KiB | 0 bytes/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (8/8), done.
Checking connectivity... done.
Cloned git@github.com:dspinellis/gi-example.git into my-issues
$ git issue list # List open issues
7dfa5b7 An issue entered from the editor
e6a95c9 New issue entered from the command line
$ git issue new -s 'Issue added on another host' # Create new issue
Added issue abc9adc
$ git issue push # Push changes to server
Counting objects: 7, done.
Compressing objects: 100% (6/6), done.
Writing objects: 100% (7/7), 767 bytes | 0 bytes/s, done.
Total 7 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
To git@github.com:dspinellis/gi-example.git
   d6be890..740f9a0  master -> master
$ git issue show 7dfa5b7 # Show issue added on the other host
issue 7dfa5b7f4591ecaa8323716f229b84ad40f5275b
Author: Diomidis Spinellis <dds@aueb.gr>
Date:   Fri, 29 Jan 2016 01:03:24 +0200
Tags:   open

    An issue entered from the editor

    Here is a longer description.
$ git issue show -c e6a95c9 # Show issue and coments
issue e6a95c91b31ded8fc229a41cc4bd7d281ce6e0f1
Author: Diomidis Spinellis <dds@aueb.gr>
Date:   Fri, 29 Jan 2016 01:03:20 +0200
Tags:   open urgent gui crash
Watchers:       jane@example.com
Assigned-to: joe@example.com

    New issue entered from the command line

comment 8c0d5b3d77bf93b937cb11038b129f927d49e34a
Author: Diomidis Spinellis <dds@aueb.gr>
Date:   Fri, 29 Jan 2016 01:03:57 +0200

    First comment regarding the issue.


$ # On the original host
$ git issue pull # Pull in remote changes
remote: Counting objects: 7, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (6/6), done.
remote: Total 7 (delta 0), reused 7 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
Unpacking objects: 100% (7/7), done.
From github.com:dspinellis/gi-example
   d6be890..740f9a0  master     -> origin/master
Updating d6be890..740f9a0
Fast-forward
 issues/ab/c9adc61025a3cb73b0c67470b65cefc133a8d0/description | 1 +
 issues/ab/c9adc61025a3cb73b0c67470b65cefc133a8d0/tags        | 1 +
 2 files changed, 2 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 issues/ab/c9adc61025a3cb73b0c67470b65cefc133a8d0/description
 create mode 100644 issues/ab/c9adc61025a3cb73b0c67470b65cefc133a8d0/tags
$ git issue list # List open issues
7dfa5b7 An issue entered from the editor
abc9adc Issue added on another host
e6a95c9 New issue entered from the command line

$ # sub-command auto-completion
$ git issue [Tab]
assign   clone    comment  git      init     log      pull     show     watcher  
attach   close    edit     help     list     new      push     tag

$ # issue sha auto-completion
$ git issue show [Tab]
7dfa5b7 - An issue entered from the editor
e6a95c9 - New issue entered from the command line

Related work

deft developed in 2011 is based on the same idea. It requires Python and offers a GUI.
Bugs Everywhere, also written in Python, supports many version control backends and offers a web interface.
bug, inspired by Bugs Everywhere, written in Go, supports git and hg
git-appraise is a distributed code review system for Git repos based again on Git.
Fossil is a distributed version control software that also supports issue tracking and a wiki. It runs as a single executable.

hannasm/gi