GitLab

Summary

Some teams use different git branches simultaneously for different purposes; it is hard to determine for some projects where activity is most important to measure.

Background

I am looking for a better way to quickly visualize and sort what repository activity is happening in exactly what branches, by name.

For context, I work with Open Source start-up companies. When I first start working with these teams, their development practices are inconsistent and varied. However, many teams early in the product development life-cycle use many git branches simultaneously, sometimes for completely different but important things. Obviously this is not a best practice that Cauldron would want to cater too much to… however…

I see this pattern often with teams I work with. It would help me identify areas of need and understand Open Source development priorities for a team if I had some way to distinguish which git branches were regularly active.

Details

Not sure if a dedicated view for branches makes sense, or if a sorting option in existing charts could work here. Sometimes I may want to exclude some branches and include others. Sometimes I need to quickly discern which branches have a pattern of activity and then look closer at activity in that branch. This is hard to in GitHub's branches interface, because you can only see the most recent activity for all branches side-by-side. I specifically want to understand activity patterns. This way, I can make concrete recommendations to teams to simplify their branch workflow with data points to inform my observations/recommendations.

Outcome

Easier to visually represent git activity across multiple branches