branchboard 0.1.6

A terminal dashboard for tracking Git branches and GitHub PRs across all your repos

branchboard

A terminal dashboard that scans your local Git repositories and shows an interactive, color-coded overview of every branch — dirty worktrees, unpushed commits, open PRs, stale branches, and more.

Built for developers who juggle dozens of repos and want a single view of what needs attention.

Features

• Unified view — Scans all repos under a directory tree and displays every non-default branch in one table
• Color-coded states — Each branch is classified and colored by its current state (dirty, open PR, stale, etc.)
• GitHub PR integration — Fetches your open/merged PRs via the gh CLI and matches them to local branches
• Vim-style navigation — j/k, g/G, Ctrl-d/Ctrl-u, Ctrl-f/Ctrl-b for fast scrolling
• Filtering — Free-text search across repo and branch names, plus a state dropdown
• Sort modes — Toggle between priority sort (actionable items first) and recency sort (most recently active first)
• Detail modal — Press Enter on any row to see full details: dirty file list, PR title, reviewers, URL
• Open PR in browser — Press o to open the selected branch's PR directly in your browser
• Fast — Async concurrent scanning (10 git + 5 GitHub processes), with a 5-minute JSON cache for instant restarts

Prerequisites

Requirement	Version	Purpose
Python	3.9+	Runtime
Git	any	Local branch and status data
GitHub CLI (gh)	2.0+	Fetching PR data from GitHub

The gh CLI must be installed and authenticated:

# Install (macOS)
brew install gh

# Install (Linux — Debian/Ubuntu)
sudo apt install gh
# or see https://github.com/cli/cli/blob/trunk/docs/install_linux.md

# Authenticate (required once)
gh auth login

Installation

pip (from PyPI)

pip install branchboard

pipx (recommended — isolated install, no venv needed)

pipx install branchboard

From source

git clone https://github.com/somanathk/branchboard.git
cd branchboard
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .

Verify

branchboard --help

Usage

# Scan the default directory (~/Work/repos)
branchboard

# Scan a custom directory
branchboard --path /path/to/your/repos

# Bypass the cache and fetch fresh data
branchboard --no-cache

CLI Options

Flag	Default	Description
--path PATH	~/Work/repos	Root directory to scan for Git repositories (searches up to 3 levels deep)
--no-cache	false	Ignore the local JSON cache and re-fetch all Git and GitHub data

Keyboard Shortcuts

General

Key	Action
q	Quit
r	Refresh — clear cache and rescan all repos
o	Open the selected branch's PR in your browser
s	Toggle sort: priority (default) / most recent
/	Focus the search input
Escape	Return focus to the table / close modals
Enter	Open detail modal for the selected branch

Vim Navigation (when table is focused)

Key	Action
j / k	Move cursor down / up one row
g / G	Jump to first / last row
Ctrl-d / Ctrl-u	Half-page down / up
Ctrl-f / Ctrl-b	Full page down / up
PageUp / PageDown	Full page up / down
Home / End	Jump to first / last row

Branch States

Branches are classified into states based on local Git status and GitHub PR data. States are listed in priority order (most actionable first):

State	Color	Meaning
Dirty	Red	Current branch has uncommitted changes
Unpushed	Salmon	Local commits not pushed to any remote
Changes Req	Orange	PR has changes requested by a reviewer
PR Open	Yellow	PR is open and awaiting review
PR Approved	Green	PR is approved but not yet merged
PR Draft	Cyan	Draft PR (work in progress)
No PR	Purple	Branch is pushed but has no associated PR
Stale	Grey	No activity in the last 14 days and no open PR
PR Merged	Bright green	PR was merged (branch can be cleaned up)

Screenshots

Detail Modal

Press Enter on any row to see full branch and PR details.

Filtered View

Use the search bar or state dropdown to narrow results.

Recency Sort

Press s to sort by most recently active branches.

Dirty File Details

See exactly which files have uncommitted changes.

How It Works

branchboard starts
  └─ LoadingScreen with progress bar
       ├─ Phase 1: Discover repos (os.walk, 3 levels deep)
       ├─ Phase 2: Scan branches (git for-each-ref + git status, 10 concurrent)
       ├─ Phase 3: Fetch PRs (gh pr list per unique GitHub remote, 5 concurrent)
       └─ Phase 4: Classify each branch into a state
  └─ Render BranchTable sorted by priority

• Repo discovery walks the directory tree looking for .git directories
• Git scanning runs git for-each-ref, git status --porcelain, and git remote get-url origin concurrently across repos
• PR fetching calls gh pr list --state all --author @me --json ... for each unique GitHub remote, with results cached to ~/.cache/branchboard/ (5-minute TTL)
• Classification is pure logic — no I/O — mapping Git state + PR state into the branch state enum

Project Structure

branchboard/
├── pyproject.toml                 # Package config and entry point
├── src/branchboard/
│   ├── __main__.py                # python -m branchboard
│   ├── cli.py                     # Argument parsing (--path, --no-cache)
│   ├── app.py                     # Textual App — screen composition, key bindings
│   ├── app.tcss                   # Textual CSS layout
│   ├── models.py                  # BranchState enum, BranchInfo/PRInfo dataclasses
│   ├── scanner.py                 # Async repo discovery + git data collection
│   ├── github.py                  # gh CLI wrapper for PR data
│   ├── classify.py                # Branch state classification logic
│   ├── cache.py                   # JSON file cache (~/.cache/branchboard/)
│   ├── screens/
│   │   ├── loading.py             # Progress bar modal during scan
│   │   └── detail.py              # Branch/PR detail modal
│   └── widgets/
│       ├── summary_bar.py         # State count header bar
│       ├── filter_bar.py          # Search input + state dropdown
│       └── branch_table.py        # Color-coded DataTable with Vim navigation
└── docs/
    ├── generate_screenshots.py    # Screenshot generation with fake data
    └── screenshots/               # SVG screenshots for documentation

Configuration

branchboard uses sensible defaults and requires no configuration file. Behavior is controlled via CLI flags.

Setting	Value	How to Change
Scan root	~/Work/repos	--path flag
Scan depth	3 levels	Not configurable (covers most monorepo layouts)
Cache location	~/.cache/branchboard/	Not configurable
Cache TTL	5 minutes	Not configurable; use --no-cache or press r
Stale threshold	14 days	Not configurable
Git concurrency	10	Not configurable
GitHub concurrency	5	Not configurable

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup, code style, and how to submit changes.

License

MIT