Support `git bug` as an "external" issue tracker
Problem to solve
git bug
is a new, experimental, distributed, decentralized, federated, etc, issue system for Git with similar characteristics to those of Fossil. Issues are stored within the git repository itself and are replicated using git push
and git pull
.
GitLab has an integrated issue tracker which lacks many of those adjectives. It is infeasible to use git bug
as the main issue tracker in GitLab at present for many reasons, but some users may wish to use it, while using GitLab for remaining functionality
Further details
GitLab includes JIRA, RedMine, etc, integration. This allows the built-in GitLab issue tracker to be replaced with an external component's issue tracker.
Long-term, I hope we'd like GitLab's non-code features (issues and merge requests, particularly) to be some of the aforementioned adjectives. While "external tracker" status for git bug
would be useful in its own right, it would also allow us to evaluate the feasibility of using it as an interchange format for GitLab-native issues (we'd still want a copy in the database at all times for quicker access and search responses, of course).
Proposal
Add git bug
as an external issue tracker to GitLab. When enabled, the built-in issue tracker is disabled, as it would be if using JIRA + GitLab.
Since, unlike most external issue trackers, there is no external web-based user interface for issues in git bug
, we'd have to also build functionality to allow those issues to be displayed (to start) and modified (in future). This could be very simple, and follow the existing tree
and blob
view functionality in GitLab, to begin with.
What does success look like, and how can we measure that?
I should be able to enable an integration in my project settings, use git bug
on my local machine, do a git push
, and see the issue in the GitLab UI.
Links / references
-
git bug
: https://github.com/MichaelMure/git-bug - HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17782121
/cc @victorwu @smcgivern