Git OpenSource Commands

Git commands for painless opensource pull request (OSPR) contributions.

WARNING: This repo does a lot of git history rewriting. Things could break! Your work might get lost. Use at your own risk. Seriously!

Setup

Before your try to set this up, note that this repo is opinionated about a few things. Let's agree on them first:

• You need one upstream repo for example: https://github.com/edx/edx-platform.git
• and your origin for example: https://github.com/OmarIthawi/edx-platform.git
• A local branch named upstream-master that is linked to the remote branch upstream/master.

If you don't like the naming and want some change, please open an issue. Or just fork the repo and change it.

Installing Steps

To install the commands do the following:

$ cd ~
$ git clone https://github.com/OmarIthawi/git-ospr.git
$ mkdir -p ~/.config/git/
$ ln -s ~/git-ospr/config ~/.config/git/config

To ensure it is installed, run the following command:

$ cd path/to/any/git/repo
$ git branch-name

It should print the branch name.

Configuring a Repo

Unlike the installation above, this has to be done on each repo.

Replace the git@github.com:* with your desired repos.

$ git remote add upstream git@github.com:edx/edx-platform.git
$ git fetch --all
$ git checkout -b upstream-master upstream/master
$ git ospr-check && echo "Everything is setup correctly"

Commands

Those are the main commands I use during the open-source pull requests:

• $ git ospr-nbr BRANCH_NAME: Creates an OSPR (open-source pull request) branch with proper base and pushes it to the correct remote.
• $ git ospr-rebase: Rebases the branch with the upstream-master. Accepts extra rebase arguments like --interactive and others.
• $ git ospr-fetch-rebase: Updates upstream-master and continue with $ git ospr-rebase. Accepts extra rebase arguments like --interactive and others.
• $ git ospr-diff: Diff with upstream/master.

Extra Commands

The commands above wouldn't be possible without adding few other commands for sanity checks and other things.

• $ git branch-name: Prints the branch name. Useful for other commands

• $ git branch-remote: Prints the remote branch of the current local branch.

• $ git ensure-arg ARG: Ensures that the first argument exists. Useful to check command runs.

• $ git pull-other BRANCH_NAME: Pulls another branch, safely. Useful before rebasing.

• $ git ensure-clean: Ensures a clean repo before doing anything stupid!

• $ git rebase-master: Pull the base branch master and then rebase. Accepts extra rebase arguments like --interactive.

• $ git diff-remote: Diff with the remote branch, useful before push --force. Accepts extra diff arguments.

• $ git diff-fetch-remote: Similar to $ git diff-remote, but fetches remote first. Accepts extra diff arguments.

• $ git ospr-check-remote REMOTE_NAME: Checks for the existence specific remote. Useful to test the repo before running ospr-* commands.

• $ git ospr-check: Checks for both upstream and ospr remote repos.

• $ git ospr-check-ospr-branch: Verifies that the current branch is an OSPR branch with correct setup.

• $ git checkout-ospr-branch PULL_REQUEST_ID: Checks out an incoming OSPR command without having to add the contributors remote. Borrowed from the GitHub help docs.

Why

I'm an Open edX developer and part of my job is to make opensource pull request contributions to the edx-platform repo.

As a non-member contributor I have to work with two different repositories:

• Company's fork of @appsembler.
• The upstream repo of @edX.

This involves a lot of juggling, which is not so much fun and wastes a lot of time in jumping from one git command to another.

I made these commands to help me.

TODO

Because every project has to have TODO list that will never be done! Here's mine 😄:

• Do nothing, sleep and go to work.
• Add tests, TravisCI and Coveralls.io integration just because it's the cool new thing to do.
• Refactor into proper git commands instead of hackish aliases.
• Add a setup script for Linux, Mac OSX, Windows, Android and every other OS in the galaxy.
• Write a book.
• Create a MOOC on Coursera, charge 140$ per enrollment and become a millionaire.
• Create a better version management tool than git.

Author

Omar Al-Ithawi (i@omardo.com)

Credit

• The original repo was made while working at @Edraak.
• It has been continued while working at @appsembler.