gitspace

Git-based workspaces

• Similar to submodules without the check-in
• Language agnostic
• SSH config pass-through for authorization

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Getting Started

1. cargo install gitspace
2. gitspace init
3. Update config
   • Add your ssh host (info below)
   • Add your repos
4. gitspace sync

Commands

Commands::Initialize

Name	Description
init	Create a new gitspace config
sync	Clone repos, update symlinks, update gitignore

Commands::Maintain

Name	Description
alias	generate aliases for gitspace repos, defaults to alias --zsh
alias --bash	generate bash / zsh compatible aliases
alias --nushell	generate nushell aliases
ignore	Update (or create) new gitignore file based on cloned repos
clean	Without argument, defaults to clean --all
clean --all	removes everything besides gitignore and your gitspace config
clean --symlinks	Remove all gitspace generated symlinks
clean --repos	Remove all cloned repos (ie. .repos directory)
fetch	Fetch all updates from master for local repos
version	print gitspace version

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Space

• A space...
  • is short for "workspace"
  • is any directory with a .gitspace file
  • combines multiple repositories into one place

Git

• Git is how you configure...
  • Which repositories should be stored
    • How they should be nested
  • Your auth strategy
  • Your sync policy
    • How often it should run

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Dependencies

Name	Link	Description
git2	git2	Clone git repos
serde	serde	Serializing/deserializing (for payloads and repogen config )
symlink	symlink	Cross-platform symlinks
reqwest-graphql	reqwest-graphql	Querying Github's GraphQL API
clap	clap	CLI argument parser

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Prior Art

Origin of this project started when I wrote repogen. While this is still used internally, it's outdated & lacks features. We ended up using submodules last year and remembered some of the pain associated with an otherwise convenient feature. Ultimately wanted something that would allow a team of devs to have a consistent directory structure without being beholden to the all-mighty monolith

There are number of notable options in the monolith/package management space, ranging from pure workspaces to interactive build systems

Few notable examples:

• https://nx.dev/
• https://lerna.js.org/
• https://turbo.build/repo
• git submodules
• VSCode workspaces

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Objectives

Objectives::MVP

• Core commands (init and sync) work

Objectives::Post-MVP

• Update README

  • install via cargo
  • Add support for install via brew

• Initialize

  • Generate a config
    • allow selecting config language
      • js (default)
      • json
      • yaml
  • Parse config that...
    • uses a SSH config provider to work with SSH connections
    • allows people to designate package manager's path per sub-repo (eg. pnpm, cargo, etc)
  • Generate initial gitignore (or update existing) to include all sub-repos paths (to avoid syncing symlinks or cloned .repos directory)
  • Clone repositories to hidden .repo directory
  • Load all submodules for repos

    More info here

  • Make the CLI interactive (during file generation)

• Maintain

  • One brew doctor equivalent command that can be used to do everything
  • Sync gitignore to match directories within .repo

    eg. "foo", "bar" repos cloned. Auto-added to .gitignore file

  • Fetch updates for all sub-repos

    eg. git pull origin master on all nested repos

  • Enable idempotent fetches (to allow re-running repogen without needing to remove previously cloned repos or generated symlinks)
  • Enable cleaning up all local repos
  • Enable cleaning up all local symlinks
  • Enable generating alias files for nested tree structure

    for now print out and allow them to source it

    • add prefix option in config
      • ${prefix}/${pwd}
    • add shell output options
      • zsh
      • nushell

• Administrate

  • Create repo labels automagically ()

    eg. "foo", "bar" repos cloned. ${opt-label-prefix}-${reponame}-${opt-label-suffix} generated on Github and Gitea

  • Show visual of dependency graph of repo structure