Sciit: Embedding issue tracking in source control management

Abstract

• Portrays the design and implementation of Sciit a novel distributed issue tracking system. • Demonstrates the advantages of using Sciit to minimise friction in issue tracking during software evolution. • Compares Sciit to state of the art distributed issue trackers. • Incorporates a migration path from centralised issue trackers, such as Gitlab. Sciit is a distributed issue tracker. Distributed issue tracking eliminates much of the friction that is otherwise necessitated by separately maintaining source code in a source control management system (SCM) and task information in an issue tracker. Sciit goes beyond the state of the art in distributed issue tracking by treating issues as first class change control items, represented as fragments of text anywhere within the SCM. This approach treats issues as representations of work in progress alongside other project artefacts, allowing much of the metadata about an issue, such as status, affected components and participants to be inferred directly from the state of the SCM, rather than requiring additional maintenance by a developer.