Git CLI tool for intelligently creating branch names

by Terretta • 9 months ago

35 58 9 months ago

Neat! Linear does this really well with a few different configurable patterns.

ytreister19• 9 months ago

I am not sure how configurable the button in Linear is. Also, gibr allows a user to not need to even leave their terminal to list their issues and create/push the branch. I also hope to have more features like creating a PR/MR and linking to a git repo.

Also many people do not have the luxury of using Linear, many companies force developers to use Jira...

dcre• 9 months ago

Sounds similar to a short script I use to generate branch names with jj, which has the advantage that you don’t have to name a branch until after you’ve already written the code, so the LLM can name it based on the contents of the diff.

https://crespo.business/posts/overeng-pr-create-jj/

davelee• 9 months ago

I use the `%f` format option. I have a `bn` alias ("branch name"):

git show --no-patch --format=%f [<commit>]

ytreister19• 9 months ago

Interesting idea, however, don't you first need to create the branch before you start committing commits?

r1cka• 9 months ago

I think people worry too much about branch names. Feature branches are usually ephemeral. Prefix your branch with your personal identifier so I know who is primary on it and worry more about the commit message which will live on indefinitely.

morkalork• 9 months ago

Yes, please just name the branch after the ticket/issue number so we can all get the context for it and call it a day

wara23arish• 9 months ago

I hate issue numbers for branch names. ISSUE-9482 doesn’t really provide much.

Ticket link should always be included in PR description.

But branch names should be descriptive like terraform_dev_create_instance

etc

jasonjmcghee• 9 months ago

This. Linear has the one click or shortcut to grab the generated branch name based on the ticket.

With GitHub setup properly, on PR open, it auto comments the link to the ticket and links to the pr in the ticket.

ytreister19• 9 months ago

That is what gibr does, it helps you do this with ease

aizk• 9 months ago

Great point

alkonaut• 9 months ago

having feature/username/id-desc is good though. Because at least you can identify why the branch is there. That they are ephemeral doesn't mean that people actually clean them up...

delusional• 9 months ago

Either it has commits I care about or it doesn't. Either way, I'm not going to consult the branch name.

If it has commits I care about, then it stays. If it doesn't, It goes. I'm only deleting on the server afterall, people can just push it back.

ytreister19• 9 months ago

Exactly, people tend to leave messes. It makes it much easier to know what the branch was for and have more piece of mind when you want to delete it.

loevborg• 9 months ago

Correct, I use uuids as branch names, to the chagrin of my teammates

brettgriffin• 9 months ago

This would infuriate me. You have to index that guid to something yourself. Why wouldn't you at least give yourself some help (your name, issue number, type of change, area of project, etc). Why make your job harder than it needs to be?

ytreister19• 9 months ago

Why would you do this!!!!!

focom2• 9 months ago

Commit message should be ephemeral too. Squashing after a PR should be the default. Only at that moment does the PR/Commit message matter.

bavent5• 9 months ago

Hard disagree here. GitHub does encourage this sort of thing, but even there for my PRs to be easily reviewable, I like to keep my commits organized and with good messages explaining things. That way the reviewer can walk the commits, and see why each thing was thing was done.

I also like it for myself, when I’m going over my own PRs before asking for a review - I will often amend commits to ensure the work is broken down correctly, each thing that should go together, does.

In a way, stacked PRs are just a higher-level abstraction of this too - same idea, keep work that goes together in the same place.

xorcist• 9 months ago

Did you mean before the PR? Why would anyone have a review system if you change the code after review?

Hopefully the commits are already squashed and rebased before review to value reviewers' time.

teiferer• 9 months ago

I was so afraid that this is another "look I built sth that uses AI!" post, slopped together in an afternoon. I'm glad it's not, such a relief!

This reaction tells me a lot about the state of our industry. (Or just the state of my mind.)

ytreister19• 9 months ago

I used some AI to help me, but I put in a lot of thought to how it is created. I have plans to add many more useful features over time.

roflchoppa• 9 months ago

a format that as worked well for me (and that I've brought with me to other teams)

``` issues/{username}/{issue-number}-{description} ```

The username prefix is helpful, for both organization, and locating branches.

ytreister19• 9 months ago

Unfortunately, gibr does not yet support username in the branch name, but I created an issue and hopefully can get it done very soon

https://github.com/ytreister/gibr/issues/42

ytreister19• 9 months ago

I implemented this in version 0.6.0 which was just released. https://github.com/ytreister/gibr/releases/tag/0.6.0 The issue assignee can be used in the branch name.

In the future I want to allow a user to easily assign an issue to the current user if they use gibr with an unassigned issue

compilethread• 9 months ago

Simple and clear branch names make teamwork so much easier.

ytreister19• 9 months ago

Yes, I agree, and that is why I created this tool

celticninja2• 9 months ago

I think branch names are quite unimportant in development and often don't worry about them being too descriptive.

In my org it is common to use the JIRA ticket number in there somewhere but other than that I think you should leave it up to devs. I can't think of a reason why I would need to know the branch name.

My favorite branch name I created was for a JIRA ticket with the number 2468.

This became ab-2468-who-do-we-appreciate

Detailed branch naming conventions are just another piece of useless documentation for devs. And if you are using the branch name to tell you what is going on the you are misunderstanding the review process.

ytreister19• 9 months ago

When you use Gitlab and squash your merge request, a new merge commit with the name of the branch is created, so I found it very helpful in that situation to know the name of the branch.

spencera• 9 months ago

I think in 2025 "intelligently creating" kind of implies the use of AI but (thankfully) this is just doing a string format based on an issue title.

ytreister19• 9 months ago

I don't know why I did not think of that, but I can see how people would assume this nowadays!

paradox4603• 9 months ago

I rarely make named branches these days. Just use JJ git push -c, which creates a branch name based off the change I'm pushing

ytreister19• 9 months ago

Interesting. That seems to work if your work is not associated with an issue tracker. Many use issue trackers and like to link each branch or PR/MR to an issue tracker.

paradox4603• 9 months ago

We've done the same thing, but we only link JIRA tickets to PRs, so when I open a PR, I stick it in the PR description body.

ytreister19• 9 months ago

Hey everyone — I’m actually the author of gibr!

I just wanted to say thanks for all the comments and discussion. It’s been amazing (and honestly a bit surprising) to see so many developers checking it out.

The idea for gibr came from the frustration I had when I was forced to use Jira for issue tracking and GitLab for our repos. At the time, I built an internal tool called jig that integrated the two. With a single command, it could create a branch, push it, transition the Jira issue to In Progress, and open a merge request with everything pre-filled — assignee, reviewers, description, and so on. It became really popular at my company.

I decided to take that idea further and rebuild it as an open-source tool with a plugin architecture, so it could work with any issue tracker or Git provider, not just Jira and GitLab.

If anyone has feedback or ideas for new integrations, I’d love to hear them — some great suggestions have already come in that might make it into the next release.

Thanks again for the support — this community is awesome.

Git CLI tool for intelligently creating branch names

Related Stories