git-pulse

Instant health check for any git repository.

What it shows

git-pulse scans git history and builds a compact engineering-health report:

• Churn hotspots: files changed most often, with risk hints.
• Bus factor: ownership concentration, inactive key contributors, single-owner risks.
• Bug clusters: files frequently touched in bug-fix commits.
• Team velocity: monthly activity trend and sharp drop/growth anomalies.
• Crisis patterns: revert, hotfix, emergency, rollback event density.
• Temporal coupling: files that repeatedly change together.
• Health score: explainable penalties + prioritized actions.

Why git-pulse

• Built for terminal-first workflows: TUI, plain text, JSON, Markdown.
• Deterministic JSON contract for CI integrations.
• Fast enough for very large repositories via lazy diff loading + caching.
• Policy mode for release gates (check --min-health, --fail-on, etc.).

Install

Cargo (recommended)

# from crates.io
cargo install git-pulse

# or from source checkout
cargo install --path .

Homebrew (HEAD formula)

brew install --HEAD ./Formula/git-pulse.rb

Nix

# run once
nix run .

# install to profile
nix profile install .

curl installer

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/balyakin/git-pulse/main/scripts/install.sh | sh

Usage

# Interactive TUI
git-pulse

# Plain output
git-pulse --format plain

# JSON for CI
git-pulse --format json --no-color

# Markdown report to file
git-pulse --format markdown -o report.md

# Analyze a specific branch and period
git-pulse --branch main --period 6m

Baseline and delta

git-pulse --save-baseline .gitpulse-baseline.json
git-pulse --compare-baseline .gitpulse-baseline.json

CI gate mode

git-pulse check --fail-on critical
git-pulse check --min-health 70
git-pulse check --max-high-risk-files 3

Policy failure exits with code 2.

Comparison

Feature	git-pulse	git-quick-stats	hercules	gitinspector
Interactive TUI dashboard	✅	❌	❌	❌
Deterministic JSON contract	✅	❌	⚠️ partial	❌
CI policy gate mode	✅	❌	❌	❌
Explainable health score	✅	❌	❌	❌
Temporal coupling analyzer	✅	❌	✅	❌
Crisis-pattern detection	✅	❌	❌	❌

Config

Optional .gitpulse.toml in repository root:

[ignore]
patterns = ["*.generated.ts", "vendor/*"]

[analysis]
period = "12m"
top = 20
include_merges = false
detect_squash = true

[authors.aliases]
"john@company.com" = ["john.doe@company.com"]

[thresholds]
bus_factor_critical = 0.60
bus_factor_warning = 0.40
crisis_rate_warning = 2
crisis_rate_critical = 4
velocity_drop_warning = 0.50

[bugs]
extra_keywords = ["patch", "workaround", "hack"]

License

MIT