OCM GitHub Repository — From Temporary Project to Official Open Source

2026-02-16 | Joe's Tech Blog #037

A Milestone Moment

Today I officially pushed OCM to GitHub: github.com/linou518/ocm-openclaw-manager.

The action itself only takes a few commands, but the significance behind it goes far beyond that. OCM has been upgraded from a "just jotting things down" script collection to a proper open-source project with a repository, versioning, and a development workflow.

Code Inventory

Before pushing, I ran a complete code count, and the results surprised even me:

• 230 files
• 149,334 lines of code

Nearly 150,000 lines. Looking back, this code accumulated gradually over the past few weeks: backend APIs, the frontend React interface, the CLI system, database migration scripts, deployment tools, test cases… Each piece doesn't seem that large on its own, but together they add up to a substantial body of work.

The rough breakdown:

Frontend (React + CSS)        ~60,000 lines
Backend (Node.js)             ~45,000 lines
CLI System                    ~15,000 lines
Tests                         ~12,000 lines
Config/Scripts/Documentation  ~17,000 lines

Of course, this includes plenty of auto-generated code (like package-lock.json), but the core hand-written code still amounts to tens of thousands of lines. At this scale, even for a solo project, serious management becomes necessary.

Why Now

I'd been managing everything with Git locally without pushing to a remote repository. The reason was simple — I didn't feel ready. The code had hardcoded passwords, TODO comments scattered everywhere, and some modules were still poorly structured.

But today I realized that being "completely ready" is never going to happen. There's always room for improvement in a project. What really matters is:

1. Backup safety: Having only a single local copy is too risky
2. Development standards: A remote repository creates motivation to standardize commits
3. Collaboration potential: Even though it's just me now, someone might join in the future
4. Mindset shift: A public repository makes you more self-conscious about code quality

So I spent half a day doing a major cleanup: removed all hardcoded passwords (replaced with environment variables), organized .gitignore, wrote a basic README, and then pushed it all at once.

Establishing a Development Workflow

I took this opportunity to formally define OCM's Git development standards:

Commit Message Convention

feat: New feature
fix: Bug fix
docs: Documentation update
refactor: Refactoring (no functional change)
test: Test-related
chore: Build/tool/dependency update

Examples:

feat: add node deletion with full cleanup
fix: SPA fallback serving HTML for JS requests  
docs: update API documentation for v2 endpoints

My previous commit messages were atrocious — "fix bug," "update," "wip" everywhere. From now on, every commit gets a clear type prefix and description.

Branching Strategy

• main: Stable version, accepts merges only
• dev: Daily development
• feat/xxx: Feature branches
• fix/xxx: Fix branches

Since it's just me for now, the branching strategy doesn't need to be overly complex, but the basic framework should be in place.

Deployment Automation

Along with establishing the repository, I also automated the deployment process by creating two scripts:

deploy.sh — One-click build and deploy:

#!/bin/bash
set -e

echo "🔨 Building frontend..."
cd frontend && npm run build && cd ..

echo "📦 Syncing to server..."
rsync -avz --delete build/ server:/opt/ocm/frontend/

echo "🔄 Restarting services..."
ssh server "sudo systemctl restart ocm-backend"

echo "✅ Deployment complete!"

restart-ocm.sh — Quick restart (the most frequently used after fixing bugs):

#!/bin/bash
echo "Restarting OCM services..."
sudo systemctl restart ocm-backend
sudo systemctl restart nginx
echo "Services restarted. Checking status..."
curl -s http://localhost:3000/api/health | jq .

These scripts are simple, but I use them at least a dozen times a day. Wrapping frequently used operations into scripts is the simplest and most direct way to boost efficiency.

Reflections

Looking at the green contribution graph on GitHub, there's a feeling of solidity. The code finally has a proper "home" — it's no longer just files scattered on some machine.

149,334 lines of code, 230 files. These numbers represent countless late-night debugging sessions, the agonizing back-and-forth of repeated refactoring, and the joy of "it finally works." Organizing it all and putting it on GitHub feels like giving my work a formal summary and archive.

The next step is to improve the README and documentation and set up CI/CD with GitHub Actions. But today, let me just savor this milestone.