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Michael HönnigandClaude Opus 5 d0169e57bc Renaming gitTally to Werkator because there is another git-related tool named gittally (#1) 
* renaming from gitTally to Werkator

* Rename GitTally to Werkator

`gitTally` is the name of another product in the git space, so the
rename is a precaution; nothing about what the build system does changes.

The name follows one rule: `Werkator` where it is prose, capitalized
where it is a Kotlin type and its file, lowercase everywhere a machine
reads it — the command, packages, paths, configuration keys and values,
the Gitea check context. Environment variables keep their convention and
are uppercase throughout.

Every configuration file is still found under its pre-rename name
(`ConfigFiles`): `.gittally.yml` at the repository root, in a build
worktree and as committed on a branch, `.git/gittally/.gittally.yml` for
the machine layer. The current name wins where both exist, and the old
file is then ignored rather than merged — two files side by side are a
half-done rename, not a layering. Without the fallback an installation
that updated without renaming would not fail: a configuration that is
not found leaves every setting at its default, so it would come up
looking healthy while having forgotten its credentials and its builds.

`docs/werkator-migrationsplan.md` lists what the fallback does not
cover and has to be moved by hand — above all the state directory
`.git/werkator/`, which holds the build history, the control token and
the worktrees, and has no fallback of its own.

`docs/migration-from-legacy.md` is deleted with this: it mapped the
legacy script's environment variables, and every host it addressed has
long since moved to the YAML configuration.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Move the pre-rename state directory at the first start

The configuration is found under either name, the state is not: build
history, control token, auto-build slots and worktrees live at one fixed
path. An installation that updates without moving `.git/gittally` would
not fail — it would come up with an empty history and a fresh control
token, quietly. So the first start moves it instead of the release notes
asking for it.

Only when the old directory exists and the new one does not. Where both
exist nothing is touched and a warning names the leftover: which of the
two is the live state is not something to guess. A failed move is an
error in the log, never an abort — a CI must not hang on it.

The worktrees are dropped rather than moved, since they point at their
old path in both directions; `GitWorktreeWorkspaces` prunes the stale
admin entry and recreates each on its branch's next build. A generated
systemd unit moves with the directory and leaves its symlink dangling,
which is warned about — the running service is unaffected, the next
start is not.

Runs from `CliRunner`, before any command resolves a path under the
directory, and so before the second context of `server` exists.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Document PR#1: the rename to Werkator

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Drop the legacy env-to-YAML conversion from the setup tool

The old bash script configured itself through `GITTALLY_*` environment
variables. The blanket rename rewrote those literals, so the converter
was looking for `WERKATOR_*` — a spelling no host has ever written. Fed
a real legacy file it would have found nothing and written an almost
empty configuration, without an error, which is the same silent failure
this rename is otherwise careful to avoid.

The conversion has served its purpose with the vm2176 to vm4006
migration, so it goes instead of being repaired. What remains is the
setup of a new instance: the preconditions, the credential prompt, and
the machine configuration written mode 600 — now carrying the host's
public URL as well, since that is host-specific too. Everything the
repository builds comes from `init` and its templates.

It also stops emitting a legacy `branches:` section, which step 18 is
about to reject outright.

`docs/plan/00-legacy-analysis.md` and `13-nginx-tls.md` get the real
`GITTALLY_*` spelling back: they record what the old script read.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Describe this repository's build with a build definition

Its own `.werkator.yml` still used the deprecated `branches` section
with an `autoBuild` schedule that was switched off. That section is read
only while nothing defines a build at all, and step 18 rejects it by
name — so this repository would have blocked the precondition of that
step, which asks that no configuration still in play carries it.

Nothing about the build changes: `builds.default` with `trigger.onPush`
is a build of every new commit on every branch, which is what the branch
section said. `config:print --full` resolves the definition completely
and logs no deprecation warning any more.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Stop documenting the pre-rename fallback for users

Exactly one repository is configured with the old names, and it is
migrated by hand in the same move as this release. The fallback is
therefore a transition of days, not a feature anyone reading the release
notes or the configuration reference has to plan around.

Removed from `releases.html` and `docs/configuration.md`. The mechanism
itself is unchanged and stays described where it is worked on: in
`ConfigFiles`, in `StateDirMigration`, and in the migration plan.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Bring the PR-doc to its final state

The `statusContext` question is answered and marked as decided rather
than left standing: it is the one value a human reads as a label, and it
stays lowercase because Gitea matches it and the client reads it back,
which makes it a value.

Also records that the pre-rename fallback is deliberately absent from
the release notes and the configuration reference.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Release v1.0.0: Werkator

The release after 0.9.21 is 1.0.0, because a product that changes its
name is better off counting from one under it. The release note says as
much, so the jump is not read as a claim about maturity — plan steps 14,
17 and 18 are still open.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Correct the PR-doc about the version

It claimed the PR carries no version bump, which the release commit made
untrue, and records why the number is 1.0.0 instead of 0.9.22.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Point the legacy references at the history

`legacy/gitTally` was removed from the tree with the rename, but the
README still described it as a reference kept in the repository, and the
plan told an executing session to read parts of it — including step 14,
which is open.

The README section is gone; `docs/plan/README.md`, step 14 and the
legacy analysis now say where the script actually is
(`git show 7f55068^:legacy/gitTally`). Executed steps and ADR 0004 keep
their wording: they record what was true when they ran.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Retarget the links in the historic PR-docs

The package rename moved every file the older PR-docs link to, leaving
60 dead links. Only the link targets are rewritten, never the visible
text and never a statement: those documents record what was true when
they were written, GitTally in the prose included. A snapshot may be
outdated; it should still be navigable.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Add the v1.0.0 deployment procedure for vm4006

Measured, not estimated: the state directory is 878 MB, of which 878 MB
are the nine build worktrees. What cannot be recreated is 84 KB, so the
snapshot before an in-place switch is instant and the rollback is one
sequence of moves.

Records the three expected non-failures — a cold Gradle volume, one
image rebuild, containers left under the old label — and that
`gitea.statusContext` needs no attention because it comes from the
watched repository's committed configuration.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Rename the machine configuration along with its directory

Found by the deployment to vm4006: the move renames the directory and
leaves the file inside it alone, so the machine configuration ended up at
`.git/werkator/.gittally.yml` — a pair of names the lookup did not
expect, because it pairs directory and file name. The instance resolved
empty credentials, no public URL and none of the host's build
definitions, and said nothing about it. That is the exact failure this
change exists to prevent, produced by the change itself.

`StateDirMigration` now renames the configuration with the directory,
unless one under the current name is already there. `ConfigFiles` carries
`.git/werkator/.gittally.yml` as a third candidate as well, for a
directory somebody moved by hand, where the migration never runs and so
can rename nothing.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Let init see a configuration under its previous name

`init --systemd` runs `init`, and its "already exists" check knew only
the current name. On the one repository still carrying `.gittally.yml`
it therefore wrote a fresh template `.werkator.yml` beside it — and
since the current name wins, that repository would have built the
template's `./gradlew test` instead of what its own configuration says.
Found on vm4006, where the file was created in the watched working tree
and removed again by hand.

Both checks now ask `ConfigFiles`, so init decides existence by the same
rule the loader uses to read.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Record the v1.0.0 deployment to vm4006

Deployed from the branch as the final test of PR#1, and it did what a
final test is for: it found two silent-failure defects before the
service was started, both fixed and redeployed in the same window.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Drop the control token left under the old localStorage key

The key is named after the product, so the rename left every browser
with a token under `gittally.controlToken`, which nothing reads any more
and which "forget token" can no longer reach. It is a write-scope token
in a browser store, not a password, but a secret nobody owns is worth
one line to remove.

Removed on load. The token on the server is unchanged, so re-entering it
once per browser is all the rename costs.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-31 13:32:54 +02:00

7.4 KiB
Raw Blame History

Build Only Branches with a Pull Request

WARNING: This document describes only the change applied in this PR. It may already be outdated once the next PR is merged. Historic PR-documentation is not maintained along with new PRs — treat it as a snapshot, not as current documentation.

The Problem

The watcher builds every changed or recently created origin branch. On repositories with many work-in-progress branches this wastes build capacity on branches nobody asked to be verified. The desired policy is: only branches with a pull request get watcher builds. Detecting pull requests must not require a Gitea API token, so it must work for anonymous read access.

Non-Goals

  • Distinguishing open from closed pull requests (requires the Gitea API, see Open Questions).
  • Gating manual gittally build <branch> invocations; an explicit command always builds.
  • Building the merge preview commit (refs/pull/<n>/merge) instead of the branch head.

The Scenarios

Feature: watcher builds only pull-request branches

Background

  • Gitea (like GitHub) exposes each pull request to plain git clients as a ref refs/pull/<n>/head pointing at the PR's head commit.
  • A branch "has a pull request" when its origin head commit equals one of those pull-request head commits.
  • The gate is configured per branch via branches.<name>.requirePullRequest (default false); setting it under branches.default applies it to all branches.

Scenario#000.01: A gated branch with a pull request is built!

So that pull-request branches get their commit status verified as before.

  • Given requirePullRequest: true applies to branch feature/pr
    • and feature/pr has new commits on origin
    • and a ref refs/pull/<n>/head on origin points at the head commit of feature/pr
  • When the watcher polls
  • Then a build of feature/pr at that head commit is enqueued
Verified by

Scenario#000.02: A gated branch without a pull request is not built!

So that work-in-progress branches do not consume build capacity.

  • Given requirePullRequest: true applies to branch feature/no-pr
    • and feature/no-pr has new commits on origin
    • and no refs/pull/<n>/head points at its head commit
  • When the watcher polls
  • Then no build is enqueued
    • and the skip is logged
Verified by

Scenario#000.03: Pull-request detection works without an API token!

So that GitTally needs no Gitea credentials for this feature.

  • Given a git remote that serves refs/pull/<n>/head refs
  • When pull-request heads are queried
  • Then they are read via git ls-remote origin "refs/pull/*/head" using the existing git authentication (or none)
Verified by

Scenario#000.04: Ungated setups make no extra remote calls!

So that existing installations see no new network traffic.

  • Given no due branch has requirePullRequest set
  • When the watcher polls
  • Then refs/pull/*/head is not queried at all
Verified by

Scenario#000.05: A branch entry overrides the default!

So that permanent branches like main keep building after merges, whose merge commits never match a pull-request head.

  • Given branches.default.requirePullRequest: true
    • and branches.main.requirePullRequest: false
  • When main has new commits and the watcher polls
  • Then main is built without any pull-request check
Verified by

Scenario#000.06: Auto builds respect the gate!

So that scheduled rebuilds follow the same policy as push-triggered builds.

  • Given a branch with autoBuild.enabled and requirePullRequest: true
    • and its head commit matches no pull-request head
  • When an auto-build slot becomes due
  • Then no build is enqueued
    • and the slot stays untriggered, so it is retried on later poll cycles
Verified by

Scenario#000.07: The gate can be disabled globally for plain git origins!

So that the same committed configuration works on environments whose origin is plain git without pull-request refs (no Gitea/GitHub), e.g. a local test server.

  • Given requirePullRequest: true applies to branch feature/no-pr
    • and watcher.pullRequestGate: false is set (typically in the machine-specific .git/gittally/.gittally.yml)
  • When the watcher polls and feature/no-pr has new commits
  • Then a build is enqueued like for an ungated branch
    • and refs/pull/*/head is not queried at all
Verified by

The Solution

GitService.pullRequestHeads() lists refs/pull/*/head on origin via git ls-remote and returns the set of head commit SHAs. The refs are read remotely instead of being fetched, because the default fetch refspec only covers refs/heads/* and mirroring pull refs locally would bloat every clone. The watcher's startBuildIfDue gate compares the branch's origin head commit against that set when the resolved branch config has requirePullRequest. The set is computed lazily and shared across one poll cycle, so ls-remote runs at most once per cycle and only when a gated branch is otherwise due. The new config key lives in BranchConfig with default false, so the feature is opt-in and existing configurations behave unchanged. watcher.pullRequestGate (default true) turns all requirePullRequest gates off globally, because a plain git origin serves no refs/pull/*/head and gated branches would otherwise never build there; being a property of the environment, it is typically set in the machine-specific .git/gittally/.gittally.yml. Config reference, init templates, and CLAUDE.md were updated in sync, including the recommended setup (default: true, main: false).

Open Questions

  • Closed pull requests whose head ref still equals the branch head also pass the gate, because matching is by commit id only; distinguishing open from closed would require the Gitea API. Currently implemented: any matching refs/pull/<n>/head counts.
  • A due auto-build slot of a gated branch without a pull request is re-checked every poll cycle for the rest of the day instead of being marked as skipped. Currently implemented: the slot stays untriggered, mirroring the behavior while a build is still running.

Follow-up PRs

  • Optionally use the Gitea API (when a token is configured) to restrict the gate to open pull requests.
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