🔍 git-tribe

Code Ownership & Knowledge Map CLI — Analyze git history to reveal who owns what code, calculate bus factor, identify knowledge silos, and auto-generate CODEOWNERS files.

Why?

• git blame shows the last editor, not the true owner
• No CLI tool calculates bus factor — critical for team risk assessment
• CODEOWNERS files are hand-maintained and go stale quickly
• Engineering managers need knowledge distribution visibility at a glance
• Useful for onboarding: "who should I ask about module X?"

Features

Installation

pip install git-tribe

Quick Start

# Run in any git repository
cd your-repo

# Full ownership report
git-tribe scan

# Deep analysis (blame every file)
git-tribe scan --depth full

# Analyze specific directory
git-tribe scan src/auth/

# Bus factor analysis
git-tribe bus-factor

# Detect knowledge silos
git-tribe silos --threshold 2

# Generate CODEOWNERS
git-tribe codeowners --output CODEOWNERS --format github

# JSON output for CI integration
git-tribe scan --format json --output report.json

# Time-bounded analysis
git-tribe scan --since "6 months ago"

Output Example

╭─────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│    🔍 git-tribe · Code Ownership Report          │
│    my-project  ·  Bus Factor: 3                  │
╰─────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

📁 Directory Ownership
┌─────────────────┬──────────────┬────────┬────────────┐
│ Path            │ Primary Owner│ Share  │ Bus Factor │
├─────────────────┼──────────────┼────────┼────────────┤
│ src/auth/       │ alice        │ 72%    │ 1 ⚠️       │
│ src/api/        │ bob          │ 45%    │ 3 ✅       │
│ src/core/       │ charlie      │ 38%    │ 4 ✅       │
│ src/utils/      │ alice        │ 55%    │ 2 ⚠️       │
└─────────────────┴──────────────┴────────┴────────────┘

⚠️  Knowledge Silos (single-author files):
  • src/auth/oauth.py          → alice (100%)
  • src/auth/jwt_handler.py    → alice (97%)

💡 Recommendations:
  1. src/auth/ has bus factor 1 — schedule pair review sessions
  2. 3 files are single-author — assign cross-review in next sprint

Configuration

Create a .git-tribe.toml in your repository root:

[teams]
backend = ["alice", "bob", "charlie"]
frontend = ["diana", "eve"]
devops = ["frank"]

[ignore]
paths = ["vendor/", "node_modules/", "*.generated.*"]
authors = ["dependabot[bot]", "renovate[bot]"]

[thresholds]
bus_factor_warning = 2    # Warn if bus factor ≤ this
silo_max_authors = 2      # Flag files with ≤ this many authors
stale_months = 6          # Author considered inactive after this

Output Formats

How It Works

Ownership Score

Combines multiple signals with weighted formula:

• 60% — Blame-based (current lines attributed to author)
• 40% — Commit frequency (number of commits touching file)

Bus Factor

Minimum number of contributors whose departure would result in >50% of the code having no active author. Sort authors by contribution %, accumulate until >50% — that count is the bus factor.

License

MIT