Git Mob

A command-line tool for social coding

Includes co-authors in commits when you collaborate on code. Use when pairing with a buddy or mobbing with your team.

Read our blog post to find out why git-mob exists: http://tech.findmypast.com/co-author-commits-with-git-mob

VS Code extension

Install

Warning: This package hasn't reached v1.0.0 yet. There may be many missing features, lots of bugs, and the API could change until we reach a stable version.

git-mob is a CLI tool, so you'll need to install the package globally.

npm i -g git-mob

By default git-mob will use the .gitmessage template to append co-authors.

Prepare commit msg setup

Do you want the co-authors appended to the message when using the command git commit -m "commit message"?

1. git mob --installTemplate
2. Add prepare-commit-msg to .git/hooks and see hook-examples

More details about above ^

--installTemplate This will create a file in your local .git folder where it will write the selected co-authors into.

prepare-commit-msg will need a script to read the co-authors template. See hook-examples folder for working scripts.

The command git mob-print will output to stdout the formatted co-authors which you can use in your own git hooks.

Revert back to default setup

1. git mob --uninstallTemplate
2. Remove prepare-commit-msg file

Workflow / Usage

With git-mob, the primary author will always be the primary user of the computer. Set your author info in git if you haven't done so before.

$ git config --global user.name "Jane Doe"
$ git config --global user.email "jane@example.com"

To keep track of potential co-authors, git-mob uses a JSON file called ~/.git-coauthors. Here's a template of its structure.

{
  "coauthors": {
    "<initials>": {
      "name": "<name>",
      "email": "<email>"
    }
  }
}

Start by adding a few co-authors that you work with.

$ cat <<-EOF > ~/.git-coauthors
{
  "coauthors": {
    "ad": {
      "name": "Amy Doe",
      "email": "amy@findmypast.com"
    },
    "bd": {
      "name": "Bob Doe",
      "email": "bob@findmypast.com"
    }
  }
}
EOF

You're ready to create your mob. Tell git-mob you're pairing with Amy by using her initials.

$ git mob ad
Jane Doe <jane@example.com>
Amy Doe <amy@example.com>

Commit like you normally would. You should see Co-authored-by: Amy Doe <amy@example.com> appear at the end of the commit message.

Let's add Bob to the group to create a three-person mob.

$ git mob ad bd
Jane Doe <jane@example.com>
Amy Doe <amy@example.com>
Bob Doe <bob@example.com>

Once you're done mobbing, switch back to developing solo.^*

$ git solo
Jane Doe <jane@example.com>

Check which co-authors you have available in your .git-coauthors file.

$ git mob --list
jd Jane Doe jane@example.com
ad Amy Doe amy@example.com
bd Bob Doe bob@example.com

^{* If you have git-duet installed, you'll need to uninstall it since it conflicts with the git-solo command.}

Find out more with git mob --help