gitspaces - A git development workspace manager

NOTE: I am calling all things "scripts". They are actually no scripts at all that are called from the cmdline. They are all bash aliases and functions, but to have one word, I call everything scripts.

Upcoming Work

Convert bash scripts into either python or golang with a light shell wrapper (to support changing directories)

Overview

GitSpaces is a set of bash scripts for managing git-based development workspaces. The main features are

Space management
- Multiple spaces
- Multiple repositories per space
- Space hibernation
- Space renaming
- Per user, space configuration overrides
Cross-repository branch management
- Common Development aids (multi-repo branch sets for ensuring on Development/Production/... branches)
- Common (and uncommon) git alias
- Directory change aliases (to each repository)
- Visual Studio Code per workspace

Background

The general idea is that for any given project you might be working on a feature here, a hotfix there, another feature there, and a bugfix somewhere else. You may handle all of these "concurrent" activities by forcing yourself to commit on your branch, change branches, or stash stuff. I've found that to be a lot of overhead especially if you are coordinating this across multiple repositories in a project.

For those of you with a, ahem, ClearCase background, you're familiar with the concept of ClearCase Views. Essentially it's an isolated workspace that has all of your project code where you can work on ONE THING. If you are asked to fix a bug or something else concurrently, you just create a new view (they're cheap) and work there. Unfortunately, git has no concept like this. Clones are expensive, committing just to context switch is a pain and messes up your commit history to boot.

Gitspaces are essentially a lightweight implementation of ClearCase Views for git projects.

Command overview

Once gitspaces scripts are available in your environment, all gitspaces commands are prefixed with gs. e.g.

Command	Description
`gs switch`	Switch to a different top-level gitspace project.
`gs ls`	List repository information (e.g., what branch they are on)
`gs mv`	Rename a current gitspace
`gs sleep`	Archive a gitspace (not using it currently - renames to _.zzz-# and hides from lists)
`gs cd`	cd around a gitspaces project. Switch gitspace, repos, folder
`gs cd -`	Switch to a different gitspace (allows you wake one up you put to sleep to use fresh)
`gs co`	Choose from a list of 'BranchSet's (in gsconfig.ini) and will git pull each repos to it's specified branch
`gs code`	Launches Visual Studio Code with .code-workspace file updated with proper paths for debugging
`gs init`	TODO: Creates project gitspaces.ini, spaces-dir, and first gs space folder (firstspace)
`gs cp`	TODO: Copies an existing gitspace folder to create another (and puts it to sleep)

Quick Setup

Download/Clone gitspaces repo and add it to your .bashrc file

cd ~
git clone <repo-path> .gitspaces
echo ". ~/.gitspaces/gitspaces.sh" >> ~/.bashrc
cp ~/.gitspaces/userfiles/.gitspacesrc.sh  ~/
perl -pi -e "s/^#alias/alias/ ~/.gitspacesrc.sh  # aliases gs=gitspaces, cds='gs cd'
. ~/.bashrc

Create a code project folder (will house projectA's gitspaces)
```
mkdir -p ~/code/projectA
```

Setup a GitSpaces project folder

Future: this is what 'gs init' will do

cd ~/code/projectA
cp ~/.gitspaces/userfiles/gitspaces.ini .        # See file comments for details
mkdir $GITSPACES_SPACESDIR  # defaults to '_'    # Where all of your project spaces will live
mkdir -p $GITSPACES_SPACESDIR/firstspace         # First project space, you can rename it later
cd $GITSPACES_SPACESDIR/firstspace

# A GitSpaces project folder has the following structure:
~/code/projectA/
 |- gitspaces.ini
 |- _/
    +- space-1/
       +- projectA-repo-1
       ...
       +- projectA-repo-N
    ...
    +- space-N/
       +- projectA-repo-1
       ...
       +- projectA-repo-N

Clone all of your repositories into the _.first gitspace folder

cd ~/code/projectA/_/firstspace
git clone <projectA-repo1>
...
git clone <projectA-repoN>

Create additional GitSpaces for projectA

Simply 'cp -R firstspace secondspace' (way faster usually than re-cloning)
Note the copy operation is way quicker if you clean your firstspace repos' (git clean -dx -f)
```
cd ~/code/projectA
cp -R firstspace secondspace
...
cp -R firstspace nthspace
```
You can add a new gitspace folder anytime you want when you need more. I've generally found that 5 are sufficient.
Add your new GitSpaces project to GITSPACES_PROJDIRS in ~/.gitspacesrc.sh and resource
Start using GitSpaces
Optional: Include ~/.gitspaces/userfiles/gitconfig

My common git aliases are in the userfiles folder. Just add the following to your ~/.gitconfig
```
[include]
path = ~/.gitspaces/userfiles/gitconfig
```

davfive / gitspaces