pivotal-github

The pivotal-github gem facilitates a Pivotal Tracker–GitHub workflow inspired by the workflow used by Logical Reality. (Despite its name, pivotal-github also works fine with BitBucket; see Configuration below.) As per usual, there are several projects (notably git-flow and git-pivotal) that implement similar solutions, but none met my exact needs, so I rolled my own.

Installation

You can install the pivotal-github gem directly as follows:

$ gem install pivotal-github

The full workflow described herein requires some of the Git utilities from git-utils, so it is recommended to install those as well.

Usage

The pivotal-github gem adds several additional Git commands to the local environment. The main addition, git story-commit, automatically incorporates the Pivotal Tracker story id(s) into the commit messages, while adding options to mark the story Finished or Delivered.

The git story-commit command makes the assumption that any string of digits in the branch name is a story id. This means that the branch names 6283185-add-markdown-support, 6283185_add_markdown_support, and add-markdown-support-6283185 all correspond to story id 6283185, while add-things-6283185-3141592 corresponds to both 6283185 and 3141592.

The full set of commands is as follows:

git story-commit

git story-commit makes a standard git commit with the story number added to the commit message. This automatically adds a link at Pivotal Tracker between the story and the diff when the branch gets pushed up to GitHub.

For example, when on a branch called add-markdown-support-6283185, the git story-commit command automatically adds [#6283185] to the commit message:

$ git story-commit -am "Add foo bars"
[add-markdown-support-6283185 6f56414] Add foo bars

The commit message is multiline and includes the story id:

Add foo bars

[#6283185]

(Previous versions of pivotal-github put the story id on the same line as the commit summary (per the usage at the Pivotal Tracker API), but placing it in a separate line gives the user direct control over the length of the message. It also looks less cluttered.)

To mark a story as Finished, add the -f flag:

$ git story-commit -f -am "Remove baz quuxes"

This gives the message

Remove baz quuxes

[Finishes #6283185]

To mark a story as Delivered, add the -d flag:

$ git story-commit -d -am "Remove baz quuxes"

The message in this case is

Remove baz quuxes

[Delivers #6283185]

Either the -f flag or the -d flag can be combined with other flags, yielding commands like

$ git story-commit -dam "Remove baz quuxes"

git story commit supports multiple story numbers as well. For example, with a branch called add-things-6283185-3141592, we could deliver both stories as follows:

$ git story-commit -dam "Remove baz quuxes"
[add-things-6283185-3141592 7g56429] Remove baz quuxes

The message here is

Remove baz quuxes

[Delivers #6283185 #3141592]

Options

$ git story-commit -h
    Usage: git story-commit [options]
        -m, --message MESSAGE            add a commit message (including story #)
        -f, --finish                     mark story as finished
        -d, --deliver                    mark story as delivered
        -a, --all                        commit all changed files
        -h, --help                       this usage guide

Additionally, git story-commit accepts any options valid for git commit. (git story-commit supports the -a flag even though that's a valid option to git commit so that the compound flag in git story-commit -am "message" works.)

git story-merge

git story-merge merges the current branch into master. On a branch called add-markdown-support-6283185, git story-merge is equivalent to the following:

$ git checkout master
$ git merge --no-ff --log add-markdown-support-6283185

Note that this effectively changes the default merge behavior from fast-forward to no-fast-forward, which makes it possible to use git log to see which of the commit objects together have implemented a story. As noted in A successful Git branching model,

The --no-ff flag causes the merge to always create a new commit object, even if the merge could be performed with a fast-forward. This avoids losing information about the historical existence of a feature branch and groups together all commits that together added the feature… Yes, it will create a few more (empty) commit objects, but the gain is much bigger than that cost.

In addition, the --log option puts the commit messages from the individual commits in the merge message, which arranges for the merge commit itself to appear in the activity log at Pivotal Tracker. This is especially useful for viewing the full diff represented by the commit.

Because of the way options are chained, passing -ff or --no-log to git story-merge will override the --no-ff or --log flags (respectively) and thus restore the default behavior of git merge.

Finally, experience shows that it's easy to forget to mark a story finished when making the final commit. As a reminder, the git story-merge command exits with a warning if the most recent commit doesn't contain 'Finishes' or 'Delivers' (or 'Finished', 'Delivered', 'Fixes', or 'Fixed'). This behavior can be overriden with the --force option.

Options

Usage: git story-merge [options]
    -d, --development BRANCH         development branch (defaults to master)
    -f, --force                      override unfinished story warning
    -h, --help                       this usage guide

Additionally, git story-merge accepts any options valid for git merge.

git story-pull-request

git story-pull-request opens the proper remote URI to issue a pull request for the current branch (OS X–only):

$ git story-pull-request

By default, git story-pull-request issues a git push-branch as well, just in case the local branch hasn't yet been pushed up to the remote repository.

As with git story-merge, by default git story-pull-request exits with a warning if the most recent commit doesn't finish the story.

Options

Usage: git story-pull-request [options]
    -f, --force                      override unfinished story warning
    -h, --help                       this usage guide

story-open

The story-open command (note: no git) opens the current story in the default browser (OS X–only):

$ story-open

Configuration

In order to use the pivotal-github gem, you need to configure a post-receive hook for your repository. At GitHub, navigate to Settings > Service Hooks > Pivotal Tracker and paste in your Pivotal Tracker API token. (To find your Pivotal Tracker API token, go to your user profile and scroll to the bottom.) Be sure to check the Active box to activate the post-receive hook. At BitBucket, click on the gear icon to view the settings, click on Services, select Pivotal Tracker, and paste in your Pivotal Tracker API key.

The pivotal-github command names follow the Git convention of being verbose (e.g., unlike Subversion, Git doesn't natively support co for checkout), but I recommend setting up aliases as necessary. Here are some suggestions, formatted so that they can be pasted directly into a terminal window:

git config --global alias.sc story-commit
git config --global alias.sm story-merge
git config --global alias.spr story-pull-request

I also recommend setting up an alias for git push-branch from git-utils:

git config --global alias.pb push-branch

A single-developer workflow would then look like this:

$ git co -b add-markdown-support-6283185
$ git pb
<work>
$ git sc -am "Added foo"
$ git push
<more work>
$ git sc -am "Added bar"
<complete story>
$ git sc -f -am "Added baz"
$ git push
$ git sync
$ git rebase master
$ git sm

Workflow with integrated code reivew

The pivotal-github gem is degined to support a workflow involving integrated code review, which has the usual benefits: at least two pairs of eyes see any committed code, and at least two brains know basically what the committed code does. The cost is that having a second developer involved can slow you down. I suggest using your judgment to determine which workflow makes the most sense on a story-by-story basis.

Here's the process in detail:

Developer #1 (Alice)

  1. Start an issue at Pivotal Tracker and copy the story id to your buffer
  2. Create a branch in the local Git repository containing the story id and a brief description: git checkout -b add-markdown-support-6283185
  3. Create a remote branch at GitHub using git push-branch
  4. Use git story-commit to make commits, which includes the story number in the commit message: git story-commit -am "Add syntax highlighting"
  5. Continue pushing up after each commit using git push as usual
  6. When done with the story, add -f to mark the story as Finished using git story-commit -f -am "Add paragraph breaks" or as Delivered using git story-commit -d -am "Add paragraph breaks"
  7. Rebase against master using git sync followed by git rebase master or git rebase master --interactive (optionally squashing commit messages as described in the article A Git Workflow for Agile Teams)
  8. Push up with git push
  9. At the GitHub page for the repo, select Branches and submit a pull request
  10. (On OS X, replace the previous two steps with git story-pull-request)
  11. Assign the pull request to Bob at GitHub
  12. On the Pivotal Tracker story, add a comment with the pull request URL, and optionally change the Owner to Bob
  13. Continue working, taking care to branch off of the current story branch if its changes are required to continue

Rather than immediately submitting a pull request, Alice can also continue by branching off the previous story branch, working on a set of related features, and then issue Bob a pull request for the final branch when she reaches a natural stopping place.

Developer #2 (Bob)

  1. Select Pull Requests at GitHub and review the pull request diffs
  2. If acceptable, merge the branch by clicking on the button at GitHub, and optionally accept the story at Pivotal Tracker
  3. If not acceptable, manually change the state at Pivotal Tracker to Rejected and leave a note (at GitHub or at Pivotal Tracker) indicating the reason
  4. If the branch can't be automatically merged, mark the story as Rejected

Developer #1 (Alice)

  1. After getting the GitHub notification that the pull request has been merged, mark the Pivotal Tracker story finished (unless assigned to Bob)
  2. If the pull request was rejected, make the necessary changes and follow the previous steps above

Merge conflicts

This section contains some suggestions for resolving merge conflicts. First, set up a visual merge tool by installing diffmerge. Then add the following to the .gitconfig file in your home directory:

[mergetool "diffmerge"]
  cmd = diffmerge --merge --result=$MERGED $LOCAL $BASE $REMOTE
  trustExitCode = false

When the branch can't automatically be merged at GitHub, follow these steps:

Devleloper #1 (Alice)

  1. While on the story branch, run git sync
  2. Rebase against master with git rebase master or merge with master using git merge master
  3. Either handle resulting conflicts by hand or use the visual merge tool: git mergetool
  4. Commit the change: git commit -a
  5. Push up the modified branch: git push
  6. (experimental) Add a Chore to revisit the pull request and assign to Developer #2 (Bob)

Now Bob should be able to merge in the pull request automatically using the nice big green button at GitHub.

Contributing

  1. Fork it
  2. Run the tests with rspec spec/
  3. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
  4. Add failing tests, then add the feature
  5. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
  6. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
  7. Create new Pull Request