git-workflow 0.3.0

Utilities for streamlining our git workflow.

Contents

• Overview

  • Start New Branch with Commit Template

  • Finish a Branch

  • Create a Commit Template for an Existing Branch

  • Remove a Branch’s Commit Template

  • Cleanup All Commit Templates in a Repo

• Setup

  • Prerequisites

  • Installation

  • Configure Git to Ignore Commit Template Files

  • Configure Your Initials

  • (Optional) Enable Tab Completion for Workflow Commands

• Workflow Commands

  • start

  • finish

  • set-template

  • unset-template

  • cleanup

• Git Configurations

  • User Details

  • Branches

  • Commit Templates

  • Ticket Numbers

  • Confirmation Prompts

• Future Updates

  • Planned

  • Backburner

Overview

This package contains command line tools to streamline common tasks in our git workflow.

Start New Branch with Commit Template

To start a new branch, run:

workflow start

This will prompt you for some information and create a new branch with the following name format:

[<client>-]<brief-description>-<yyyymmdd>-<initials>

If you provide a ticket number, this will create a git commit message template for the branch. By default, the commit template will be in the following format:

[<ticket#>]

Demos

Starting a project branch:

Commit message will include the specified ticket number:

Different branches can use different commit templates:

👆 You can also use command line arguments to skip the prompts. Each workflow command supports a variety of command line options.

Finish a Branch

When you’re finished with a project branch that has been merged, run:

workflow finish

This will clean up configs, remove the branch’s commit template, and delete the branch.

Demo

Create a Commit Template for an Existing Branch

If you already have a branch created and would like to create a commit template, run:

workflow set-template

Demo

Remove a Branch’s Commit Template

To remove a branch’s commit template without deleting the branch, run:

workflow unset-template

Demo

Cleanup All Commit Templates in a Repo

If you have a bunch of lingering commit templates and would like to tidy up, run:

workflow cleanup

By default, this will clean up configs and template files for every branch except the one you have checked out. It will also look for orphaned commit templates with no associated branch and remove them.

Demo

Setup

Prerequisites

Python 3.6+

This package was developed using features that require Python 3.6 or greater (developed using Python 3.9.2).

You can use this guide to install Python 3 on macOS.

Git 2.23+

This package uses features that require Git 2.23 or greater.

To install an updated version of git on macOS using Homebrew:

brew install git

Note: Make sure /usr/local/bin is added to your PATH. You can do this by adding the following to your .bashrc:

export PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"

Installation

Once you have the above prerequisites installed, you can install it using pip (or pip3 depending on how you installed Python 3):

pip install git-workflow

Configure Git to Ignore Commit Template Files

These commands generate files for commit templates, which you likely do not want to track in your repos.

Option 1: Configure Global .gitignore (RECOMMENDED)

1. Create a global gitignore file, e.g. ~/.gitignore_global

2. Set the global git config for core.excludesfile to the path of your global gitignore, e.g.:

   git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore_global

3. Add the following to your global gitignore:

   # Commit message templates
   .gitmessage_local*

For more information on core.excludesfile:

• GitHub - Ignoring files

• Git Configuration - core.excludesfile

Option 2: Ignore for a Single Repo

To ignore generated template files in a single git repo, add the following to the .gitignore file:

# Commit message templates
.gitmessage_local*

Configure Your Initials

By default, workflow start will prompt you for your initials every time you start a new branch. You can set the git config workflow.initials to skip this prompt, e.g. to set your initials to “cd”:

git config --global workflow.initials cd

For more information, see the Git Configurations section below.

(Optional) Enable Tab Completion for Workflow Commands

This package utilizes argcomplete to support tab completion in Bash. Some additional setup is required to enable tab completion.

Prereq: Enable Tab Completion in Bash

If you haven’t already, you will need to enable tab completion in Bash. You can follow this guide to enable Bash Completion on macOS.

Activate Tab Completion

After setting up tab completion for Bash, you need to activate tab completion for argcomplete. This can be done a couple of ways depending on your Bash version.

Option 1: Activate Global Completion for argcomplete (Bash 4.2+)

If you have Bash 4.2 or greater, you can simply run the following command:

activate-global-python-argcomplete

Then restart Bash for these changes to take effect.

Note: The default version of Bash on macOS is 3.2.57. You can follow this guide to update to a newer version.

Option 2: Activate Completion for Just This Package

If you’re on an older version of Bash or do not want to enable global completion for some reason, add the following to your .bash_rc:

eval "$(register-python-argcomplete workflow)"

Then restart Bash for these changes to take effect.

Workflow Commands

Usage: workflow <command>

start

Create a new branch with the following name format:

[<client>-]<brief-description>-<yyyymmdd>-<initials>

Where:

• <client> - (Optional) Client’s name

• <brief-description> - Description of the work

• <yyyymmdd> - Today’s date

• <initials> - Engineer’s initials

Script will prompt for details and format appropriately (i.e. no spaces/underscores, all lowercase).

Usage

usage: workflow start [-h] [-V] [-c <client> | -C] [-d <description>] [-i <initials>] [-s] [-t <ticket#> | -T] [-b <branch> | -B | -r <tag>] [-P]

Create a new branch.

General:
  -h, --help            Show this help message and exit
  -V, --version         Show version number and exit

Branch Name Arguments:
  -c <client>, --client <client>
                        Specify client name
  -C, --no-client       No client name (skips prompt)
  -d <description>, --description <description>
                        Specify branch description
  -i <initials>, --initials <initials>
                        Specify developer initials
  -s, --skip-bad-name-check
                        Skip check for bad branch names

Commit Template Arguments:
  -t <ticket#>, --ticket <ticket#>
                        Specify ticket number (will create commit template)
  -T, --no-ticket       Skip ticket number prompt, don't create commit template (overrides -t)

Branching Arguments:
  -b <branch>, --base-branch <branch>
                        Specify branch to use as base for new branch (default: master)
  -B, --branch-from-current
                        Use currently checked out branch as base (overrides -b)
  -r <tag>, --base-release <tag>
                        Branch from the specified git tag
  -P, --no-pull         Skip pulling changes to base branch

Configs

Command uses the following configs:

• workflow.initials

• workflow.baseBranch

• workflow.badBranchNamePatterns

finish

Finish a project branch.

By default, this command will prompt for confirmation unless --force is specified. Once confirmed, this command will:

• Unset the commit template of the project branch

• Checkout the base branch and pull latest updates

• Attempt to delete the project branch using git branch -d, which may fail if the project branch has not been fully merged

Usage

usage: workflow finish [-h] [-V] [-f | -c] [<branch>]

Finish a project branch.

General:
  -h, --help          Show this help message and exit
  -V, --version       Show version number and exit

Positional Arguments:
  <branch>            Branch to finish (default: current)

Confirmation Prompt Arguments:
  Override workflow.finishBranchConfirmationPrompt config.

  -f, --force         Skip confirmation prompt (if configured)
  -c, --confirmation  Prompt for confirmation before deleting

Configs

Command uses the following configs:

• workflow.baseBranch

• workflow.finishBranchConfirmationPrompt

set-template

Create and configure commit template for the current branch.

By default, the commit template includes the specified ticket number before the commit message. E.g. for ticket number AB-12345:

[AB-12345] <commit message text starts here>

The commit template file will be created in the root of the git repository. By default, the filename will be in this format:

.gitmessage_local_<ticket>_<branch>

The format of the filename, commit template body, accepted ticket numbers, and more can be customized with git configs (see the Configs section below for details).

Usage

usage: workflow set-template [-h] [-V] [<ticket>]

Configure git commit template for a branch.

General:
  -h, --help     Show this help message and exit
  -V, --version  Show version number and exit

Positional Arguments:
  <ticket>       Ticket number to use in commit template

Configs

Command uses the following configs:

• workflow.commitTemplateFilenameFormat

• workflow.commitTemplateFormat

• workflow.ticketInputFormatRegex

• workflow.ticketFormatCapitalize

• workflow.ticketInputFormatRegex

• workflow.initials

unset-template

Remove commmit template for a branch.

By default, this command will prompt for confirmation before removing the commit template unless --force is specified.

Usage

usage: workflow unset-template [-h] [-V] [-f | -c] [<branch>]

Remove commit template for a branch.

General:
  -h, --help          Show this help message and exit
  -V, --version       Show version number and exit

Positional Arguments:
  <branch>            Branch to unset template for (default: current)

Confirmation Prompt Arguments:
  Override workflow.unsetTemplateConfirmationPrompt config.

  -f, --force         Skip confirmation prompt (if configured)
  -c, --confirmation  Prompt for confirmation before unsetting

Configs

Command uses the following configs:

• workflow.unsetTemplateConfirmationPrompt

cleanup

Tidy up workflow-related files and configs.

This command will first list all branches and files that will be affected. By default, it will then prompt for confirmation unless --force is specified. Once confirmed, this command will:

• Unset the commit templates of all configured branches

• Remove any orphan commit template files that have no associated branch

By default, the current branch is omitted from cleanup unless --include-current-branch is specified.

Usage

usage: workflow cleanup [-h] [-V] [-B] [-o] [-f | -c]

Tidy up workflow-related files and configs.

General:
  -h, --help            Show this help message and exit
  -V, --version         Show version number and exit

Cleanup Options:
  -B, --include-current-branch
                        Unset template for current branch too
  -o, --orphans-only    Only clean up templates without a branch

Confirmation Prompt Arguments:
  Override workflow.cleanupConfirmationPrompt config.

  -f, --force           Skip confirmation prompt (if configured)
  -c, --confirmation    Prompt for confirmation before cleaning up templates

Configs

Command uses the following configs:

• workflow.cleanupConfirmationPrompt

Git Configurations

Workflow commands will use the following git configs if set:

User Details

workflow.initials

The user’s initials.

If set, workflow start will skip the prompt for your initials and use this value.

E.g.: To set your initials to “cd”:

git config --global workflow.initials cd

Branches

workflow.baseBranch

Default: master

Branch to use as a base when creating a new branch using workflow start.

E.g.: To base branches off of develop:

git config workflow.baseBranch develop

workflow.badBranchNamePatterns

Set to a space-separated string of phrases or patterns that should not appear in a standard branch name. If set, workflow start will check for these before attempting to create a new branch.

E.g.: if standard branch names shouldn’t include the words -web or -plugins:

git config workflow.badBranchNamePatterns "-web -plugins"

Commit Templates

workflow.commitTemplateFormat

Default: '[{ticket}] '

Format of commit template body. Supports the following placeholders:

• {ticket}: Replaced with ticket number

• {branch}: Replaced with branch name

• {initials}: Replaced with user initials (if configured)

workflow.commitTemplateFilenameFormat

Default: '{ticket}_{branch}'

Format of commit template filenames. Supports same placeholders as workflow.commitTemplateFormat.

NOTE: Resulting filenames will always begin with '.gitmessage_local_'.

Ticket Numbers

workflow.ticketInputFormatRegex

Default: '[a-zA-Z]+-[0-9]+'

Regex representing the format of a valid ticket number. Default format is 1 or more letters, then a hyphen, then 1 or more numbers. To allow any format, set to '.*'.

workflow.ticketFormatCapitalize

Default: true

If true, letters in the ticket number will be capitalized after validation.

Confirmation Prompts

workflow.finishBranchConfirmationPrompt

Default: true

If true, workflow finish will prompt for confirmation before unsetting unless -f is specified. If false, will not prompt for confirmation unless -c is specified.

workflow.unsetTemplateConfirmationPrompt

Default: true

If true, workflow unset-template will prompt for confirmation before unsetting unless -f is specified. If false, will not prompt for confirmation unless -c is specified.

workflow.cleanupConfirmationPrompt

Default: true

If true, workflow cleanup will prompt for confirmation before cleaning unless -f is specified. If false, will not prompt for confirmation unless -c is specified.

Future Updates

Planned

• Config to disable “Client” prompt.

• Add -R/--branch-from-latest-release to workflow start

Backburner

Low-priority updates that may be added in a future release:

• Generate API docs using Sphinx.

• Support --verbosity argument on all commands.

• rename command: renames branch while keeping its commit template configured.