Install git-integration with Homebrew

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• git-integration

Project history

John Keeping published the project as a public GitHub repository in 2013. The manual describes an integration branch as the result of merging several topic branches onto a base branch, with the branch rebuilt as the base or topics change.

The documentation evolved around instruction sheets stored under refs/insns, with commands for creating, editing, rebuilding, continuing, aborting, and showing status. Release notes for v0.2 added a disabled-instruction marker and a prefix option for sharing instruction sheets across machines; v0.4 added support for annotated tags as integration-branch bases.

Adoption history

The project has remained a niche Git workflow tool rather than a broad platform. Its Homebrew formula and GitHub Pages documentation made it easy for macOS and Unix-like users to install, but its adoption story is mostly among users who already manage long-lived topic-branch integration flows.

How it is used

Practitioners use `git integration --create`, `--edit`, `--rebuild`, and `--status` to describe and refresh a synthetic branch containing multiple topic branches. The instruction sheet can include a base ref, merge instructions, comments that become merge-message text, and disabled instructions kept for later reference.

Because instruction sheets live in Git refs, teams can push and fetch them much like branches. That makes git-integration useful when an integrator wants to share a proposed integration queue without rewriting or merging the underlying topic branches.

Why package nerds care

For package and Git tooling enthusiasts, git-integration is notable because it models project state with Git's own ref namespace rather than an external database. It is part of the Unixy family of Git subcommands that compose with Git configuration, shell completion, reflogs, and plain-text manuals.

Timeline

• 2013: Public GitHub repository created.
• v0.2: Added disabled instructions, prefix support, reflog cleanup, portability fixes, and documentation fixes.
• v0.4: Added annotated-tag support for integration-branch bases.

Related projects

• git-integration sits near Git's rerere conflict-reuse mechanism and branch-stack tools such as git-machete. Unlike rebase-stack tools, it focuses on building a throwaway or shareable integration branch from independent topic branches.

Sources

• https://api.github.com/repos/johnkeeping/git-integration
• https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/git-integration
• https://github.com/johnkeeping/git-integration/blob/master/Documentation/description.txt
• https://github.com/johnkeeping/git-integration/blob/master/Documentation/git-integration.txt
• https://github.com/johnkeeping/git-integration/tree/master/Documentation/RelNotes