gitallica

README

Gitallica

Gitallica performs temporal diff analysis of distributed version control logs to help you understand code evolution, identify risks, and optimize team workflows. Analyze churn patterns, code survival rates, and other engineering metrics to make data-driven decisions about your codebase health.

Features

• 14 Research-Backed Metrics: Based on industry studies from Microsoft Research, DORA, and Clean Code principles
• DORA Compliance: Elite/High/Medium/Low performance classification using Accelerate benchmarks
• Real Git Analysis: Authentic repository analysis using go-git (no external dependencies)
• Comprehensive Coverage: From code survival to change lead time, bus factor to commit cadence
• CLI-First Design: Simple commands with powerful filtering and time-window analysis

Quick Start

# Run comprehensive health check (recommended first step)
gitallica health-check --last 30d

# Analyze code churn patterns
gitallica churn --last 30d

# Check code survival rates
gitallica survival --last 6m

# Measure DORA performance
gitallica change-lead-time --limit 10

Installation

Coming soon: Homebrew installation will be available after project stabilization.

For now, build from source:

git clone https://github.com/bgricker/gitallica.git
cd gitallica
go build -o gitallica .

Available Commands

Command	Description	Research Basis
health-check	Comprehensive health check and issue identification	All metrics combined
churn	Additions vs. deletions ratio	Microsoft Research
survival	Code survival rate analysis	Spinellis et al.
churn-files	High-churn files identification	Nagappan & Ball
component-creation	New component creation rate	Kent Beck
directory-entropy	Directory structure entropy	Edsger Dijkstra
dead-zones	Untouched code identification	CodeScene
bus-factor	Knowledge concentration analysis	GitHub empirical studies
ownership-clarity	Code ownership patterns	Microsoft Research
onboarding-footprint	New contributor analysis	Robert C. Martin
test-ratio	Test-to-code ratio	TSP study
high-risk-commits	Large commit identification	Nokia Bell Labs
commit-cadence	Commit frequency trends	Kent Beck
long-lived-branches	Branch lifecycle analysis	DORA research
change-lead-time	DORA lead time metrics	DORA State of DevOps

Note: Review Bottlenecks (#13) requires GitHub API integration and is planned for future implementation.

Usage Examples

Basic Analysis

# Run comprehensive health check (recommended first step)
gitallica health-check --last 30d

# Analyze entire repository
gitallica churn

# Time-scoped analysis
gitallica survival --last 3m

# Path-specific analysis
gitallica bus-factor --path src/

Advanced Filtering

# Combined filters
gitallica churn --last 90d --path lib/

# Multiple paths at once (NEW!)
gitallica churn-files --path src/ --path lib/ --path app/
gitallica bus-factor --path cmd/ --path main.go --path README.md

# Detailed output
gitallica change-lead-time --limit 20 --method tag

Configuration File

Create a .gitallica.yaml file to avoid repeating common options:

# Default paths to analyze for each command
churn:
  paths:
    - "src/"
    - "lib/"
    - "app/"

bus-factor:
  paths:
    - "src/"
    - "lib/"

test-ratio:
  paths:
    - "src/"
    - "tests/"

# Global settings
defaults:
  last: "6m"  # Default time window
  limit: 20  # Default number of results to show

Configuration Priority:

1. Command-line flags (highest priority)
2. Project-specific .gitallica.yaml or .gitallica.yml in current directory
3. Home directory ~/.gitallica.yaml (lowest priority)
4. Default values (fallback)

Setup:

# Global configuration (applies to all projects)
cp .gitallica.yaml.example ~/.gitallica.yaml

# Project-specific configuration (overrides global settings)
cp .gitallica.yaml.example .gitallica.yaml

# Customize your paths and settings
# Then run commands without specifying paths
gitallica churn  # Uses project config, falls back to global config
gitallica churn --path README.md  # Overrides all config files

Configuration Hierarchy:

• Project-specific: .gitallica.yaml or .gitallica.yml in your project root
• Global: ~/.gitallica.yaml in your home directory
• Explicit: --config /path/to/config.yaml flag
• CLI flags: Always override configuration files

Configuration Visibility: Every command now shows you exactly what configuration is being used:

❯ gitallica churn --last 7d --path README.md
Using config file: /Users/benricker/code/gitallica/.gitallica.yaml
=== Churn Analysis Scope ===
Time window: last 7 days
Path filter: README.md (from CLI)

This helps you:

• Remember project settings when working with multiple repositories
• Spot unintended configurations when CLI flags override YAML settings
• Debug configuration issues by seeing exactly what's being used

Documentation

• User Guide - Comprehensive usage guide
• Command Reference - Detailed command documentation
• Research Methodology - Research basis and thresholds

Research Foundation

Gitallica implements 14 metrics based on authoritative sources:

• DORA Metrics: Elite/High/Medium/Low performance classification
• Clean Code Principles: Robert C. Martin's guidelines
• Microsoft Research: Code survival and churn analysis
• Accelerate Research: Lead time and deployment frequency
• Industry Benchmarks: Bus factor, ownership patterns, and more

Each metric includes:

• Research-backed thresholds
• Industry-standard classifications
• Actionable recommendations
• Performance benchmarking

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please see our Contributing Guide for details.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes
4. Add tests for new functionality
5. Submit a pull request

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Acknowledgments

• DORA Research: DevOps Research and Assessment team
• Microsoft Research: Code survival and churn studies
• Clean Code: Robert C. Martin's principles
• Accelerate: Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, Gene Kim
• go-git: Git implementation for Go

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Gitallica - Shred your git history. Rock your repo insights. 🎸

Documentation

Overview

Copyright © 2025 Ben Ricker

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.