spr

README

Stacked Pull Requests on GitHub

What is Stacked Diff Workflow?

Long explanation: https://jg.gg/2018/09/29/stacked-diffs-versus-pull-requests/

Short explanation: A git flow where the atomic unit of change is a commit. Each commit runs all the tests of ci and gets reviewed. When working with stacked diffs or commits, to add more stuff to a particular commit, you amend that commit. This allows for multiple commits to be stacked on top of each other in a single branch, avoiding the overhead of starting a new branch for every new change or feature. Small changes and pull requests are easy and fast to achieve. One doesn't have to worry about stacked branches on top of each other and managing complicated pull request stacks. The end result is a more streamlined faster software development cycle.

Stacked Pull Requests on GitHub

The github flow is not quite compatible with the stacked diff model. At the core the atomic unit of change is a pull request which is based on a branch and can have many commits. Stacking pull requests on top of each other in github introduces extra overhead of managing all the commits in each branch of the pull request stack. git spr is a client side tool that achieves a simple streamlined stacked diff workflow using github pull requests and branches. git spr manages your pull request stack for you, so you don't have to.

Installation

Brew

> brew tap ejoffe/homebrew-tap
> brew install spr

DEB | RPM | APK

Download the .deb, .rpm or .apk from the releases page and install them with the appropriate tools.

Manual

Download the pre-compiled binaries from the releases page and copy to the desired location.

Install Commit Hook

A commit hook is used to add a commit-id tag to each commit. To install the commit hook, simply run the following in the root directory of the git repository you are working on.

> ln -s $(which spr_commit_hook) .git/hooks/commit-msg

Workflow

Commit your changes to a branch. Note that every commit will end up becoming a pull request.

> touch feature_1
> git add feature_1
> git commit feature_1 -m "Feature 1"
> touch feature_2
> git add feature_2
> git commit feature_2 -m "Feature 2"
> touch feature_3
> git add feature_3
> git commit feature_3 -m "Feature 3"

The subject of the commit message will be the title of the pull request, and the body of the message will be the body of the pull request. If you have a work in progress change that you want to commit, but don't want to create a pull request yet, start the commit message with all caps WIP. The spr script will not create a pull request for any commit which starts with WIP, when you are ready to create a pull request remove the WIP. There is no need to create new branches for every change, and you don't have to call git push to get your code to github. Instead just call git spr update.

Managing Pull Requests

Run git spr update to sync your whole commit stack to github and create pull requests for each new commit in the stack. If a commit was amended the pull request will be updated automatically. The command outputs a list of your open pull requests and their status. git spr update pushes your commits to github and creates pull requests for you, so you don't need to call git push or open pull requests manually in the UI.

> git spr update
[·✗✔✗] 60: Feature 3
[✔✔✔✔] 59: Feature 2
[✔✔✔✔] 58: Feature 1

Amending Commits

When you need to update a commit, either to fix tests, update code based on review comments, or just need to change something because you feel like it. You should amend the commit. Use git amend to easily amend your changes anywhere in the stack. Stage the files you want to amend, and instead of calling git commit, use git amend and choose the commit you want to amend when prompted.

> touch feature_2
> git add feature_2
> git amend
 3 : 5cba235d : Feature 3
 2 : 4dc2c5b2 : Feature 2
 1 : 9d1b8193 : Feature 1
Commit to amend [1-3]: 2

Merge Status Bits

Each pull request has four merge status bits signifying the request's ability to be merged. For a request to be merged, all required status bits need to show ✔. Each status bit has the following meaning:

1. github checks run and pass

• · : pending
• ✗ : some check failed
• ✔ : all checks pass
• - : checks are not required to merge (can be configured in yml config)

1. pull request approval

• ✗ : pull request hasn't been approved
• ✔ : pull request is approved
• - : approval is not required to merge (can be configured in yml config)

1. merge conflicts

• ✗ : commit has conflicts that need to be resolved
• ✔ : commit has no conflicts

1. stack status

• ✗ : commit has other pull requests below it that can't merge
• ✔ : all commits below this one are clear to merge

Merging Pull Requests

Your pull requests are stacked. Don't use the UI to merge pull requests, if you do it in the wrong order, you'll end up pushing one pull request into another, which is probably not what you want. Instead just use git spr merge and you can merge all the pull requests that are mergeable in one shot. Status for the remaining pull requests will be printed after the merged requests.

> git spr merge
MERGED #58 Feature 1
MERGED #59 Feature 2
[·✗✔✗] 60: Feature 3

Show Current Pull Requests

> git spr
[·✗✔✗] 60: Feature 3

Configuration

When the script is run for the first time two config files are created. Repository configuration is saved to .spr.yml in the repository base directory. User specific configuration is saved to .spr.yml in the user home directory.

Repository Config	Type	Default	Description
githubRepoOwner	str		name of the github owner (fetched from git remote config)
githubRepoName	str		name of the github repository (fetched from git remote config)
requireChecks	bool	true	require checks to pass in order to merge
requireApproval	bool	true	require pull request approval in order to merge

User Config	Type	Default	Description
showPRLink	bool	true	show full pull request http link
cleanupRemoteBranch	bool	true	delete remote branch after pull request merges
logGitCommands	bool	false	logs all git commands to stdout
logGitHubCalls	bool	false	logs all github api calls to stdout
statusBitsHeader	bool	true	show status bits type headers

Happy Coding!

If you find a bug, feel free to open an issue. Pull requests are welcome.

If you find this script as useful as I do, add a star and tell your fellow githubers.

License

• MIT License