git-story 0.0.5

Tell the story of your Git project by creating video animations (.mp4) of your commit history directly from your Git repo.

git-story

Tell the story of your Git project by creating video animations (.mp4) of your commit history directly from your Git repo.

Use cases

• Visualizing Git projects
• Sharing desired parts of your workflow with your team
• Creating animated Git videos for blog posts or YouTube
• Helping newer developers learn Git

Features

• Run a single command in the terminal to generate a custom Git animation (.mp4) from your repo
• Specify any commit id or ref to start animating from (default: HEAD)
• Specify the number of commits to include (default: 8)
• Ref labels are drawn by default for HEAD, branch names, and tags
• Simple branching structures (1 or 2 branches)
• Add custom branded intro/outro sequences if desired

Video animation example

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/49353917/168178222-583167f6-9e86-4e0b-a1ba-3a8c57aa3abe.mp4

Requirements

• Python 3.9 or greater
• Pip (Package manager for Python)
• Manim (Community version)
• GitPython

Quickstart

1. Install manim and manim dependencies for your OS

2. Install GitPython

$ pip3 install gitpython

3. Install git-story:

$ pip3 install git-story

3. Browse to the Git repository you want create an animation from:

$ cd path/to/project/root

4. Run the program:

$ git-story

5. A default animation .mp4 file will be created using the most recent 8 commits on your checked-out Git branch.

6. Use command-line options for customization, see usage:

$ git-story -h

usage: git-story [-h] [--commits COMMITS] [--commit-id COMMIT_ID] [--hide-merged-chains] [--reverse] [--title TITLE] [--logo LOGO] [--outro-top-text OUTRO_TOP_TEXT]
                 [--outro-bottom-text OUTRO_BOTTOM_TEXT] [--no-intro] [--no-outro] [--max-branches-per-commit MAX_BRANCHES_PER_COMMIT] [--max-tags-per-commit MAX_TAGS_PER_COMMIT]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --commits COMMITS     The number of commits to display in the Git animation (default: 8)
  --commit-id COMMIT_ID
                        The ref (branch/tag), or first 6 characters of the commit to animate backwards from (default: HEAD)
  --hide-merged-chains  Hide commits from merged branches, i.e. only display mainline commits (default: False)
  --reverse             Display commits in reverse order in the Git animation (default: False)
  --title TITLE         Custom title to display at the beginning of the animation (default: Git Story, by initialcommit.com)
  --logo LOGO           The path to a custom logo to use in the animation intro/outro (default: logo.png)
  --outro-top-text OUTRO_TOP_TEXT
                        Custom text to display above the logo during the outro (default: Thanks for using Initial Commit!)
  --outro-bottom-text OUTRO_BOTTOM_TEXT
                        Custom text to display below the logo during the outro (default: Learn more at initialcommit.com)
  --no-intro            Omit the intro sequence from the animation (default: False)
  --no-outro            Omit the outro sequence from the animation (default: False)
  --max-branches-per-commit MAX_BRANCHES_PER_COMMIT
                        Maximum number of branch labels to display for each commit (default: 2)
  --max-tags-per-commit MAX_TAGS_PER_COMMIT
                        Maximum number of tags to display for each commit (default: 1)

Command Examples

Default - draw 8 commits starting from HEAD, from oldest to newest:

$ cd path/to/project/root
$ git-story

Customize the start commit and number of commits, and reverse their display order:

$ cd path/to/project/root
$ git-story --commit-id a1b2c3 --commits=6 --reverse

Add an intro with custom title and logo:

$ cd path/to/project/root
$ git-story --commit-id dev --commits=10 --show-intro --title "My Git Repo" --logo path/to/logo.png

Add an outro with custom text and logo:

$ cd path/to/project/root
$ git-story --show-outro --outro-top-text "My Git Repo" --outro-bottom-text "Thanks for watching!" --logo path/to/logo.png

Installation

See QuickStart section for details on installing manim and GitPython dependencies. Then run:

$ pip3 install git-story

Learn More

Learn more about this tool on the git-story project page.

Authors

Jacob Stopak - on behalf of Initial Commit