Github-Todos – Git hook to convert your TODOs into Github issues | Hacker News Reader

Github-Todos – Git hook to convert your TODOs into Github issues

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85 pointsbpierre19 comments

Excellent! At the moment, I dump all my TODOs in a section in my readme, but if the relate to specific lines of code, it's a mess trying to trace what the TODOs were referencing when I try to go back and work on them many months later.

Once question, once a TODO is removed from the repository, is the issue also automatically closed? Or vice-versa? Would be cool if the two were coupled, so that there aren't dangling TODOs left in the repository once the issue has been addressed in some fashion.

This coupling is not ready yet, I still have to find a satisfying workflow.

When issue is closed :

— it detects TODOs anywhere, not necessarily in comments, it could destroy some code (same for 'inject-issue' but here it would be a removal, can be tougher) — maybe a TODO previously related to this issue will have to be modified instead of deleted, how should it handle it?

When TODO is removed :

— should I close issue directly or check in the whole codebase if it still exists somewhere and keep it open?

Many questions arise and I still found no harmless answers :(

But it definitely should help you track it both ways, with a command "stat" for example that would report you any actions you should achieve, and even interactively do it for you. But I don't think it will happen in hook itself yet.

I want all ideas available here ;) should create an issue for open discussion.

I'm just throwing out an idea here; I don't know if it's possible.

Put some sort of tag in the todo comment to represent a change. e.g. // TODO: Fix this issue #complete

At commit time, the hook will see the tag changed, reference the commit in the issue, and then auto-close it.

Actually, thinking about it a bit more, I think it'd be nice to be in full control of the process. So perhaps something a la "brew doctor" would be nice, so that you simply obtain an overview of disconnected TODOs and issues. That way, it's clear that there's something lingering that needs to be taken care of.

I think that any automation should affect issues and not involve directly changing code. So, it might be interesting to have a toggle to automatically close issues after scanning the repo for the presence of TODOs. I do think that this should be a toggle that can be switched on or off.

That's more the direction I think about yes

Great idea! Integrating with Githooks is super convenient.

This reminds me of watson (https://github.com/nhmood/watson-ruby) which manages TODOs pretty well (with GH support) but doesn't generate the hooks for you unfortunately.

That rocks so much. It will fit perfectly to my workflow, where I write my commit messages with "Closes #[ID]." text at the end, which actually triggers github to automatically close the issue.

Totally awesome!

Hope it will do the job :) still in active development so… https://github.com/naholyr/github-todos/issues ;)

This looks pretty promising. It would be awesome if we could easily change the providers. (gitlab, bitbucket, trello etc)

Jira should quickly be on its way, in the meantime I'll make everything needed to make the operation of adding a new issue manager a very easy task.

If this works as advertised, this is awesome. I've always used TODOs in my projects, and haven't always used github due to employer constraints. Now I won't have to put so much effort into keeping track of open tasks.

Hi I'm the author :)

Note that it can open or comment issues (matching based on TODO's text == issue's title), but it does not yet closes them, because I couldn't find a satisfying workflow yet (which means it may never occur).

Give it a try on a sample repository, always needing more testers !

Thanks for making this! I have been requesting this for over a year now and haven't had the time to do it myself. This will totally change the way issues are handled.

Anyone like this better than a command line issue/bug tracker?

It's all about not forgetting to create the issue: you just put your // TODO and not go out of your editor.

An IDE plugin could do the trick nicely too (create an issue by right-clicking on a TODO for example). But a git hook is more portable.

In fact the first prototype was a shell script using grep and ghi (https://github.com/stephencelis/ghi).

Anyway, it depends on your workflow, if you already have the right tools and habits no to lose your TODOs in your deep code, Github-Todos is obviously of no use for you!

> But a git hook is more portable.

Are GitHub issues portable?

Ah ah nope, and that arised fast (issue #4) ;)

But definitely, if you find it useless, then it certainly is for you! I was just telling why others could find it useful :)

> But definitely, if you find it useless,

I didn't say that. :/

neat

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