Textbased issue-tracker/todo list for Git?

Question

I've been managing all of my todo-lists as

~/git-repo/todo

which is kept under git. THen I add/delete files from the todo list, and have git autocommit all changes. However, I feel there should be more powerful tools.

Besides "cil" and git-issues [neither of which I've tried], what tools are available?

PS I want something that's entirely text/command line based.

Thanks!

Answer 1

I wrote my own.

Answer 2

Emacs org-mode ( http://orgmode.org ) + git if necessary.

Answer 3

Half a year ago, I was looking for the answer to the same question, and I wrote down what I found. I brought it up-to-date now.

Articles on the subject

A few articles and blogposts about distributed issue tracking:

• Offline Issue Tracking: A blog entry. The author mentions TicGit, Git-issues and Ditz.
• Distributed bug tracking: An article from May 2008. The author mentions Bugs Everywhere, ticgit, Scmbug, DisTract, DITrack, and Ditz.
• A list of distributed issue trackers: A plain list with a few notes. Mentions 13 DITS.
• Distributed bug tracking: An article from April 2008. The author mentions Fossil, Bugs Everywhere, DITrack, DisTract, TicGit and Ditz.
• Ditz versus Bugs Everywhere: Comparison of Ditz and Bugs Everywhere. Interesting article.

Features

Features you may look for:

• Generating HTML pages from the issue database.
• Issues may have tags/labels.
• Easily readable and editable issue database. E.g. Ditz stores every issue in a YAML file.

Tools that support git

I made separate sections for tools that support git, tools that don't and tools I have read of but haven't looked at.

All tools that are in this category support git. They either support git explicitly or are VCS agnostic. All of them have clean command line interfaces. None of them seemed to have a comprehensive documentation; at most they have a good tutorial. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)

Bugs Everywhere (git, bazaar, mercurial, rcs, arch)

Pros:

• Used to be the leading project in this niche.

Misc:

• Written in Python.
• The project uses Bazaar.
• Two blogposts mention that "perhaps abandonware, last commit was July 2007" and "The Ditz mailing list is really active with people debating ideas for new features. The be (Bugs Everywhere) mailing list is now showing some signs of life after looking dead in August.", but it does not seem dead now.

TicGit

Pros:

• Seems easy to use and has a nice tutorial.
• Issues may have tags.

Cons:

• Git-Issues a "better version" of TicGit.

Misc:

• Written in Ruby.
• Hosted by GitHub.
• I haven't managed to find out how the issue database is stored.
• Last commit in October 2008.

Git-Issues

Pros:

• "It replicates the functionality of packages like ticgit, but does so in the form of a more standalone Python script. You can check this script in along with your project in order to ensure that all contributors are able to view the bug database using the same version of the script that you used to create them".
• Issues may have tags.

Cons:

• I could not find how to modify a ticket without having to edit the XML file that stores it. Even though the homepage states the following: "Note that for any XML haters out there, you'll never have to look at this data."

Misc:

• Written in Python.
• Hosted by GitHub.
• The issue database is stored in XML.
• Last commit in March 2009. Has a major and quite a few minor contributors, see here.

Ditz

Pros:

• The source code of the Ditz project is stored in git.
• Can generate HTML page from issues.
• "The Ditz mailing list is really active with people debating ideas for new features.", as somebody wrote at the end of 2008.
• There is a GUI which can be used to browse and edit the tickets.

Misc:

• Written in Ruby.
• Hosted by Gitorious.
• The issue database is stored in YAML.
• Last commit was in January 2010 (just a few weeks ago).

See also:

• HTML generated from the issue database: http://ditz.rubyforge.org/ditz/
• Ditz Commander (GUI): http://code.google.com/p/ditz-commander/

Tools that do not support git

• Fossil -- a version control system with integrated bug tracker
• DITrack -- subversion only
• DisTract -- monotone VCS only

Tools I haven't looked at

• Scmbug (glues together VCS and other bug tracking software, such as bugzilla)
• bartman's git-case (git)
• Stick (git)
• cil (Command-line issue tracker with some git integration for closing bugs on commit)
• dbug

Answer 4

I have done my own research about a year ago. Ultimately I find myself using a TODO file or branch for general ideas and TODO: tags across the source for things that associate with a specific line of code. So my tool is really just Vim with its vimgrep. I just feel all the other tools work against me, not with me.