This is a UI problem, not a lack-of-knowledge problem. If Github's UI surfaced notes they would instantly get much more usage.
Yeah I wish GitHub supported these
Git Notes: Git's coolest, most unloved feature (2022)
21–30 of 147 posts
Re: Git Notes: Git's coolest, most unloved feature (2022)
#22Another little-known feature is git trailers: https://alchemists.io/articles/git_trailers These are key-value structures data that can be included on a commit when it is created. These are used by some systems for attaching metadata. For example, Gerrit uses this for attaching its Change-Id.
One more similar feature from a different system: PostgreSQL COMMENT https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/sql-comment.html This allows you to attach text to various database objects in PostgreSQL. I wish PostgreSQL had a feature that was more like structured key-value database object metadata that could be edited.
I love PostgreSQL COMMENT. I built a prototype app for a buddy with Supabase and added a COMMENT to every table.
Re: Git Notes: Git's coolest, most unloved feature (2022)
#23Why did GitHub remove support for them, and how do we get this decision reversed?
Re: Git Notes: Git's coolest, most unloved feature (2022)
#24Git notes are only cool if you frequently add text to a commit after the commit has happened and visible to others. The Acked-By and mailing list discussion link examples don't seem to be good examples. Both of these are likely already known when the commit is made. And git commit message basically can have an unlimited length, so you could very well copy all the discussions about the commit that happened on a forge…
> The Acked-By and mailing list discussion link examples don't seem to be good examples. Both of these are likely already known when the commit is made.
Discussion regarding a commit (is: review) and acknowledgment of a commit cannot happen before the commit has been made.
> One use case I think might be a better example is to add a git note to a commit that has later been reverted.
Commit messages are better for this use case. When you got blame a file, it shows the latest changes for that file. If a commit reverts changes from another commit, the newer commit that reverts the older commit will show up in the blame.
Re: Git Notes: Git's coolest, most unloved feature (2022)
#25In practice I get a lot of value out of referencing commit hashes. If I fix a problem I introduced in a previous commit (for example, commit bumped version, and I forgot to bump it somewhere), my fix will say "amends ab12cd34".
That way when I need to cherry-pick that commit, or do something similar (bump again), I can search for the hash of the commit I'm looking at to find what might be missing.
UI is worse than git-notes but no need for additional setup to sync them.
Re: Git Notes: Git's coolest, most unloved feature (2022)
#26Another little-known feature is git trailers: https://alchemists.io/articles/git_trailers These are key-value structures data that can be included on a commit when it is created. These are used by some systems for attaching metadata. For example, Gerrit uses this for attaching its Change-Id.
This is fantastic. This could really beef up CI with ticket numbers and stuff.
Re: Git Notes: Git's coolest, most unloved feature (2022)
#27I discovered notes from the man pages around 2020 but didn't use them as it was primarily a local repo feature. By default they don't get pushed or fetched. If course, one can configure it such that it's pushed and fetched, but that's a team decision and mine didn't vote for it.
Re: Git Notes: Git's coolest, most unloved feature (2022)
#28Why did GitHub remove support for them, and how do we get this decision reversed?
I think the answer is in the link.
Making git notes more usable would make it easier to migrate from GitHub. It would make you less locked in.
Re: Git Notes: Git's coolest, most unloved feature (2022)
#29Git notes are only cool if you frequently add text to a commit after the commit has happened and visible to others. The Acked-By and mailing list discussion link examples don't seem to be good examples. Both of these are likely already known when the commit is made. And git commit message basically can have an unlimited length, so you could very well copy all the discussions about the commit that happened on a forge…
> The Acked-By and mailing list discussion link examples don't seem to be good examples. Both of these are likely already known when the commit is made. Discussion regarding a commit (is: review) and acknowledgment of a commit cannot happen before the commit has been made. > One use case I think might be a better example is to add a git note to a commit that has later been reverted. Commit messages are better for thi…
> Discussion regarding a commit (is: review) and acknowledgment of a commit cannot happen before the commit has been made.
It can't happen before the commit on a feature branch, but it can happen before merging the commit back to the main development branch. Given that a rebase or merge commit is already frequently necessary to integrate changes from a feature branch after review is finished, I don't see why this type of info couldn't be added (or even required to exist) before merging.
Re: Git Notes: Git's coolest, most unloved feature (2022)
#30Why would I choose to stash information like this in the git notes, versus just appending it to the commit message itself?