pivotal-github

The pivotal-github gem facilitates a Pivotal Tracker–GitHub workflow inspired by the workflow used by Logical Reality. (It 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

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, when the story id is 6283185, 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] [#6283185] Add foo bars

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

$ git story-commit -f -am "Remove baz quuxes"
[add-markdown-support-6283185 7g56429] [Finishes #6283185] Remove baz quuxes

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

$ git story-commit -d -am "Remove baz quuxes"
[add-markdown-support-6283185 7g56429] [Delivers #6283185] Remove baz quuxes

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] [Delivers #6283185 #3141592] Remove baz quuxes

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-push

git story push creates a remote branch at origin with the name of the current branch:

$ git story-push
* [new branch]      add-markdown-support-6283185 -> add-markdown-support-6283185

Options

Usage: git story-push [options]
    -t, --target TARGET              push to a given target (defaults to origin)
    -h, --help                       this usage guide

Additionall, git story-push accepts any options valid for git push.

git story-pull

git story-pull syncs the local master with the remote master. On a branch called add-markdown-support-6283185, git story-pull is equivalent to the following:

$ git checkout master
$ git pull
$ git checkout add-markdown-support-6283185

The purpose of git story-pull is to prepare the local story branch for rebasing against master:

$ git story-pull
$ git rebase master

(This is essentially equivalent to

$ git fetch
$ git rebase origin/master

but I don't like having master and origin/master be different since that means you have to remember to run git pull on master some time down the line.)

If you've already pushed the story, you'll have to force a subsequent push using

$ git push --force

If someone else might already have pulled the branch, you should probably merge master instead of rebasing against it:

$ git story-push
$ git story-pull
$ git merge master

Options

Usage: git story-pull [options]
    -d, --development BRANCH         development branch (defaults to master)
    -h, --help                       this usage guide

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

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 that 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 story-push as well, just in case the local branch hasn't yet been pushed up to the remote repository. This step can be skipped with the --skip option.

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
    -s, --skip                       skip `git story-push`
    -h, --help                       this usage guide

story-open

The story-open command (without 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.sp story-push    
git config --global alias.sl story-pull
git config --global alias.sm story-merge
git config --global alias.spr story-pull-request

A single-developer workflow would then look like this:

$ git co -b add-markdown-support-6283185
$ git sp
<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 sl
$ git rebase master
$ git sm

Note that this workflow uses git sp (and subsequent invocations of git push) only to create a remote backup. The principal purpose of git story-push is to support the integrated code review workflow described below.

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)

Start an issue at Pivotal Tracker and copy the story id to your buffer
Create a branch in the local Git repository containing the story id and a brief description: git checkout -b add-markdown-support-6283185
Create a remote branch at GitHub using git story-push
Use git story-commit to make commits, which includes the story number in the commit message: git story-commit -am "Add syntax highlighting"
Continue pushing up after each commit using git push as usual
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"
Rebase against master using git story-pull 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)
Push up with git push
At the GitHub page for the repo, select Branches and submit a pull request
(On OS X, replace the previous two steps with git story-pull-request)
Assign the pull request to Bob at GitHub
On the Pivotal Tracker story, add a comment with the pull request URL
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)

Select Pull Requests at GitHub and review the pull request diffs
If acceptable, merge the branch by clicking on the button at GitHub
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
If the branch can't be automatically merged, mark the story as Rejected

Developer #1 (Alice)

After getting the GitHub notification that the pull request has been merged, mark the Pivotal Tracker story finished. (In principle, Bob could do this, but Alice probably knows the PR-to-story mapping better than Bob, and experience shows that it is difficult for Bob to remember to update Pivotal Tracker after accepting the pull request.)
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)

While on the story branch, run git story-pull
Rebase against master with git rebase master or merge with master using git merge master
Either handle resulting conflicts by hand or use the visual merge tool: git mergetool
Commit the change: git commit -a
Push up the modified branch: git push
(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

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