# Decentralized Issue Tracking with Radicle + git-issue

[Radicle](https://radicle.xyz) is a decentralized platform for code collaboration. Radicle is still in its early development stages and even though it aims to be the "decentralized GitHub", it still doesn't tackle **Issue Tracking**, so it does not *yet* offer an alternative to GitHub Issues.

Because of this, I've been wondering what issue tracking looks like in a peer-to-peer setting, where `git` is the main "backend", so I took a look around to find existing solutions for issue tracking in `git`.

[Git-Issue](https://github.com/dspinellis/git-issue) came up as one of the most prominent options, so I tried combining the two to see what decentralized issue tracking could look like.

## 0. Prerequisites

* git version 2.34+
* [git-issue](https://github.com/dspinellis/git-issue)
* If on macOS, you'll probably need the GNU date package, which comes as part of the `coreutils` package on Homebrew. `brew install coreutils` is your friend.

## 1. Create Git Repo with embedded git-issue

### a. Create a Repo with a README

mkdir -p fun-with-issues
cd fun-with-issues
echo "# Fun with Issues\n" > README.md
echo "This repo showcases how to use git-issue" >> README.md
git init .
git add .
git commit -m 'This is going to be fun'

### b. Create some issues

$ git issue init -e
Initialized empty issues repository in /Users/yorgos/dev/playground/fun-with-issues/.issues

$ git issue new -s 'Take over the world'
Added issue 3ff2e39

> NOTE: **the `-e` parameter is important** as it tells git-issue to NOT create a new git repo under `.issues` but rather to use the existing git repo we have already created.

### c. Verify the issues have been created

Check the output of the below commands looks as expected.

$ git issue list 
ecc2dd2 Take over the world

$ git log

## 2. Push to Radicle

Next, we are ready to publish our local copy on Radicle.

First, we need to initialize the repo for Radicle and then we can

22-02-11 20:30 ➜  fun-with-issues git:(main) rad init

Initializing local 🌱 project fun-with-issues

ok Description · A project with an embedded issue tracker, powered by dspinellis/git-issue.
ok Default branch · main
ok Initializing...

=> Your project id is rad:git:hnrkbmjsfxy4hd97m54sywaf4gmxqfdh7sdyy. You can show it any time by running:
   rad show --project

=> To publish your project to the network, run:
   rad push
   
   
22-02-11 20:31 ➜  fun-with-issues git:(main) rad push
Pushing 🌱 to remote `rad`
$ git push rad
Password for 'rad://[e-mail]':
Everything up-to-date

Git version 2.34.1
Git signing key ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIPn+c2TZ9TNvPXd3FHcKpo2+cAuqRQ8HUNOqdmijl3ui

Syncing 🌱 project rad:git:hnrkbmjsfxy4hd97m54sywaf4gmxqfdh7sdyy to https://pine.radicle.garden/

ok Syncing delegate hnrkkfb6agf1uxmg3pnuj8kgcppk6g5ys5gyo...
ok Syncing project identity...
ok Syncing project refs...
ok Project synced.

🌱 Your project is synced and available at:

   (web) https://app.radicle.network/seeds/pine.radicle.garden/rad:git:hnrkbmjsfxy4hd97m54sywaf4gmxqfdh7sdyy
   (web) https://app.radicle.network/seeds/pine.radicle.garden/rad:git:hnrkbmjsfxy4hd97m54sywaf4gmxqfdh7sdyy/remotes/hydh9hh5r584ug537q75te7akw4g5hhymijno6b4o4qi8c4fd1774r
   (git) https://pine.radicle.garden/hnrkbmjsfxy4hd97m54sywaf4gmxqfdh7sdyy.git

## 3. Retrieve issues from Radicle

In order to view the existing issues of the project, we just need to clone the repo from Radicle!! The issue tracker is embedded, remember? ;)

$ mkdir -p working-copy
$ cd working-copy
$ git clone https://pine.radicle.garden/hnrkbmjsfxy4hd97m54sywaf4gmxqfdh7sdyy.git project-with-issue-tracker
Cloning into 'project-with-issue-tracker'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 3, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (3/3), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done.
remote: Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
Unpacking objects: 100% (3/3), 914 bytes | 457.00 KiB/s, done.

Finally, you can view the list of issues:

$ git issue list 
ecc2dd2 Take over the world

🎉 "It works"! 🎉

## Closing Thoughts

git-issue + Radicle provide a working, decentralized, issue tracking solution!

*(this list is a work-in-progress)*

➕ Installation/setup is really lightweight.
➕ There is practically zero maintenance overhead for your issue tracker. No extra system to maintain / uptime to worry about !! 🥳
➕ git-issue already supports importing issues from GitHub / GitLab, which offers a **smooth migration path** for teams that want to switch their issue tracking to a decentralized solution as well.
➕ git-issue already provides a rich feature set for [working with issues](https://github.com/dspinellis/git-issue#work-with-an-issue).
➕ If you want a private issue tracker, there's not much to it! You just keep your repo private - i.e. you don't publish to a community seed node.

➖ Coming from a GH issues background, I am still expecting the web-based UI to visualise issues. It would be pretty neat if app.radicle.network could be taught to read the issues format by `git-issue`.
➖ Some graphical user interface for `git-issue` would be needed at some point. Not everyone who interacts with issues is comfortable on the command-line.
➖ Attaching screenshots/files is technically be possible, but it's not exactly as convenient as drag&drop.
➖ git-issue might be missing features (e.g. per-issue permissions, @mention notifications, etc.) that mean it's not on-par with GitHub issues.