Proposal: "GitPanel" Project Contribution

Dear Git Team,

I am devtracer on GitHub, and I recently reached out to Git’s GitHub page to contribute a project of mine to the community. During this process, I had the privilege of receiving guidance from dscho, who kindly explained how to open pull requests and share ideas in a respectful and constructive manner. Following their advice, I’m reaching out through this email to share my project idea and verify whether any similar projects exist within the community. For reference, here is a link to our prior conversation: Git Pull Request #1877 https://github.com/git/git/pull/1877

The project I am proposing is called gitpanel (a working title subject to change). Gitpanel is designed to provide a built-in terminal user interface (TUI) for viewing and managing Git and GitHub accounts directly from the terminal. The key features include: Profile Overview: Displays an ASCII-styled version of the user’s GitHub profile picture (similar to Neofetch), along with their username and email address.

*Account Management* : Allows users to easily add or update their account details, such as username and email.

*Project Preview*: Provides quick access to a user’s GitHub projects, enhancing convenience for developers.

The motivation behind this project lies in its potential to simplify access and usability. By running a single command (gitpanel), users can:

*Streamline Setup*: Guide first-time Git users on a device through logging in to their GitHub account and configuring their username and email.

*Boost Accessibility*: Offer an intuitive TUI interface that presents account information and projects in a clear, organized way, all within a terminal environment.

I think gitpanel can complement the Git ecosystem by enhancing usability and accessibility for users who prefer terminal-based workflows.

In this email, I have addressed the questions: What does this project aim to accomplish? and Why does it function as it does now? I would greatly appreciate your feedback and insights, as well as any information on similar projects that might exist within the community.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to collaborating further!

Best regards, devtracer (GitHub: https://github.com/devtracer)

On 2025-01-25 at 19:59:17, dev oft wrote:

I think this sounds like an interesting project, but it's probably not appropriate as part of the Git project.

Part of the reason is that there are many different forges, of which GitHub is only one, and we try not to prioritize any particular forge or implementation. From the project's point of view, we consider it just as desirable to host your own source code using a simple HTTPS or SSH server, or using a self-hosted solution such as Gitolite and cgit, as it is to use something like GitHub, GitLab, or Codeberg.

With that in mind, a lot of the functionality that you offer here is quite specific to GitHub. Pull requests are not a Git feature, although most forges have them under some name. Similarly, Git doesn't have the idea of a profile picture, or even a profile at all.

So ultimately I think many people might find your project useful, but it wouldn't be suitable to be within the Git project itself. As for similar projects, I believe there's tig, which provides a Git-related TUI (although I've never used it, and so can't speak to it much more than that).

A suggestion I might make if you want your project to be more generally useful is to support a couple different types of forges, possibly by creating some sort of reusable generic abstraction layer. For instance, I'm sure GitHub, GitLab, and Forgejo all have profiles, so being able to work with all three would be useful, and if your software also supported the on-premises versions of these forges, it might be useful as well to people in large companies and universities, which often self-host for various reasons.

Part of the reason I suggest that is because even though I do work for one of the major forges (although my participation here is in my individual capacity), some of the open-source software I use in my personal or even work life is hosted on another forge (which I'm sure is also true for many other contributors), so being able to use the same tooling that works for a variety of forges is helpful.

Best of luck on your project!

Dear Brian,

Thank you for taking the time to review my proposal for Gitpanel and for providing such thoughtful and detailed feedback. I truly appreciate your guidance and insights regarding the direction of my project and its alignment (or lack thereof) with the goals of the Git project.

I now have a clearer understanding of the Git project's approach to maintaining forge-neutrality, and I see how prioritizing Git-hub specific features might not align with its principles. Your suggestion to explore support for multiple forges by developing a generic abstraction layer is invaluable. This would undoubtedly make the project more versatile and appealing to a broader audience.

I'll also take a closer look at tools to better understand existing solutions and identify potential gaps that Gitpanel could address. Your suggestion to consider the needs of both hosted and self-hosted environments resonates with my goal of creating a widely useful and adaptable tool.

Thank you again for your encouragement and for sharing your perspective. I look forward to iterating on Gitpanel and exploring ways to make it more inclusive and valuable for the larger Git ecosystem.

Best regards, devtracer

On Sat, Jan 25, 2025 at 4:16 PM brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net> wrote: