🚀 Announcing gibr: A CLI that auto-generates clean, consistent Git branch names

Yair Treister — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 12:49:32 +0000

If your team’s Git branches look anything like this:

fixstuff
jon-branch
1234
testing123
final-FINAL

and you’ve wished your team’s branches were consistently named and made it clear who created them and why…

I built gibr to solve exactly that.

Check out the repo: https://github.com/ytreister/gibr

🧩 What is gibr?

gibr is a small command-line tool that automatically creates clean, consistent, descriptive Git branch names by pulling metadata from your issue tracker.

No more manually typing branch names.
No more deciding between feature/123-add-user vs feat/add-user-123

Just run:

gibr 123

and it will create a branch like:

ENG-123-add-user-search
Branch name is customizable via the .gibrconfig template.

Or you can use the Git alias:

git create 123

You can set that up with gibr alias command

🔌 Supported issue trackers

gibr currently integrates with:

GitHub
GitLab
Jira
Azure DevOps
Linear
Monday.dev

It fetches the issue title, type, and assignee, then generates a branch based on your configuration settings.

🛠 Initial setup

Run the interactive initializer:

gibr init

This will create a .gibrconfig file in your project root which is how gibr knows which issue tracker, project, your team's preferred naming conventions, etc. Setup is a breeze:

$ gibr init
Welcome to gibr setup! Let’s get you started 🚀

Which issue tracker do you use?
1. AzureDevOps
2. GitHub
3. GitLab
4. Jira
5. Linear
6. Monday.dev
7. Forgejo (coming soon)
8. YouTrack (coming soon)

Select a number (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) [1]: 2

GitHub selected.

GitHub repository (e.g. user/repo): ytreister/gibr
Environment variable for your GitHub token [GITHUB_TOKEN]:
🎉  Found GitHub token in environment (GITHUB_TOKEN)
.gibrconfig already exists. Overwrite? [y/N]: y
✅  Created .gibrconfig with GitHub settings
You're all set! Try: `gibr issues`

🎯 Why I built this

I worked at a company where we used Gitlab for our repository, but Jira for issue tracking. I wanted to reduce as much friction as I could with creating branches, changing issue status, linking issues to Gitlab (branches and merge requests). I built a tool at my company specifically to automate all of this. When I left the company, I decided to rewrite the tool, but in a more plugin-oriented fashion to support any number of issue trackers, not just Jira.

🛠 How it works

You run:

gibr <issue-number>

It:

Determines which issue tracker to use based on your configuration
Fetches the issue and its metadata via API
Determines the branch name based on your configuration and the issue metadata
Creates + checks out the branch
Optionally pushes it
All fully configurable.

🧠 Multiple branches for the same issue

What if you started working an issue in a branch, and wanted to start over without deleting your existing branch? What if you just merged a branch, and realized you forgot one small thing and you want to create a quick follow-up branch based on your issue you just merged? gibr reduces the friction in doing this!

$ gibr issues
|   Issue | Type   | Title                                   | Assignee   |
|---------|--------|-----------------------------------------|------------|
|      50 | issue  | Add support for YouTrack                |            |
|      44 | issue  | Add support for Forgejo                 |            |
|      39 | issue  | Add dry run flag                        |            |
|      38 | issue  | Add support for issue types from labels |            |
$ gibr 39
Generating branch name for issue #39: Add dry run flag
Branch name: 39-add-dry-run-flag
⚠️  Branch '39-add-dry-run-flag' already exists locally.
Would you like to create a new branch with a suffix? [Y/n]: Y
Enter suffix [take2]: take2
ℹ️  Creating new branch '39-add-dry-run-flag-take2' instead.
✅  Created branch '39-add-dry-run-flag-take2' from main.
✅  Checked out branch: 39-add-dry-run-flag-take2
✅  Pushed branch '39-add-dry-run-flag-take2' to origin.

📦 Try it out

Install:

pip install gibr
# or if you use uv:
uv tool install gibr
# install optional tracker extras if needed:
pip install gibr[github,jira]
# or
uv tool install --with github --with jira gibr

💬 Looking for feedback

I'd love to hear:

Does consistent branch naming matter for your team?
Does your team use different systems for repo vs issue tracking?
Would you be interested in seeing gibr automate more than just naming, creating and pushing branches? Think pull requests, merge requests, changing issue status, auto-assigning unassigned issues that you start working with gibr, etc.
Any pain points you'd like gibr to solve?
Any issue trackers you'd like supported?

Thanks for reading — happy to answer questions!

DEV Community: Yair Treister