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Introducing Hacksboard for Github, a pull request tracking tool

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There has been a recurring problem here at Lafosca that any tool could solve at all: we needed a way to track all the pending pull requests and their status.

 

💬 Guys, I’ve just pushed some iOS stuff for [Project Name], could any one take a look?

💬 Would anyone mind taking a look to this Android feature I pushed yesterday? Need to merge and deploy ASAP!

💬 Oh hey, I need the server merge in order to start working on this iOS feature! Is it pending?

 

With the goal of solving that in mind, we set a small team to come up with different ideas. It took 2 developers and 2 designers a whole week, strange tests and weird questions to the rest of the team, but finally we thought we had a final, simple idea. We would develop a tool to be viewed in our office TV, with information of the pending pull requests to review and which technologies were behind those. It’s been live in our office now for a couple of months and we thought it might be of use for other developers in need. So here it is, meet Hacksboard.

Hacksboard is quite easy to understand, but some previous explanations are needed:

Why do we need Hacksboard?

The methodology described here is how we work. However, being an agency, sometimes there are multiple projects running at once and still you need some people to review those, sometimes the owner of the pull request having to ask multiple times for a review to be able to merge, and product owners asking why the changes where not there. So yeah, things get a bit complicated when escalating. And no, email notifications are not a solution.

Here at Lafosca we work on multiple platforms: iOS, Android, Server… and not everybody is capable to review all the pull requests that are created. Hacksboard offers us a panel with a list of all pending pull requests on the active projects. You can set up your project’s technology and color, so you can identify the source of a pull request in a fast, easy way.

 

Hacksboard-1

 

So, let’s say I’m an iOS Developer and I have some free time. I just only have to take a quick look to our office TV and search the  icon. Any pull request waiting? Then let’s have a look and start the code review.

That works for developers but also for project managers. Anything stucked? Check Hacksboard search for your project colors and see what’s going on from the code side.

How does Hacksbord work?

Hacksboard is designed to work on a TV. This should be on all the working time, and everybody has to be able to see it from its work place.

All information displayed at Hacksboard is big so it can be readable at some distance of the screen, and the pull request information is summarized with icons and colors.

 

Hacksboard: List of pull requests

Hacksboard: List of pull requests

 

Hacksboard: List of pull requests on detail

Hacksboard: List of pull requests on detail

 

Setting up Hacksboard is very easy. All you have to do is  log in with Github and select the projects you want to display. Then define each project technology and color and voilà! You can start streaming your pull requests right away.

 

Hacksboard: Settings to configure Github projects

Hacksboard: Settings to configure Github projects

How secure is my data on Hacksboard

The first time you log in on Hacksboard, we will ask for some permissions. We wanted to explain which permissions we require and why do we need them.

First of all, to have access to your projects, Hacksboard uses OAuth authentication with Github server (the official method for authentication with Github API). This means that we never, ever know about your password.

Once you have logged in, Hacksboard asks you for permissions on your private and public repositories. Unfortunately, accessing the Pull Requests of your projects requires access to all the data in your project. We talked with Github team about this because we wanted to use a less invasive scope, but by now there is no possibility to ask permission to only access the issues list.

“Currently, the only scope which gives you access to pull requests in private repositories is “repo” scope. We understand that you don’t want to ask your users for permissions you don’t need (…) It’s a very important topic and we’re glad you’re bringing it up with us. Providing more granular OAuth scopes is already the biggest blip on the API team’s radar and it’s something we’d love to do. However, we can’t make promises about if and when the scopes you wished for might be available — the API team is rolling out additional scopes as they are completed”

— GITHUB STAFF

For sure, all your communications are secure. We use https protocol and all our connections are full AES 256-bit encrypted .Despite of that, you don’t have to worry, all your code is safe. The only data that Hacksboard retrieves from your Github account is the issues list and comments inside a Pull Request.

 

Now, that’s it! This is an internal tool turned into a product. We’re starting to show it up to multiple companies and opening it as a beta version, so we would love you to give it a try with your team. And of course, any comment or feedback about it will be very welcome. Check it out and sign up for free!

Go to Hacksboard

The post Introducing Hacksboard for Github, a pull request tracking tool appeared first on lafosca.


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