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Yair Treister
Yair Treister

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

#productivity #git #opensource #devops

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

fixstuff
jon-branch
1234
testing123
final-FINAL
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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
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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
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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
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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`
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🎯 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>
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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.
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📦 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
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💬 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!

Top comments (1)

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ytreister profile image
Yair Treister •

Would love to hear your feedback here :-)