#!perl use strict; use warnings; use OptArgs qw/dispatch/; eval { dispatch(qw/run App::bif/) }; if ($@) { print STDERR $@; exit 1; } 1; __END__ =encoding utf-8 =head1 NAME bif - distributed project management tool =head1 VERSION 0.1.0_27 (2014-09-10) =head1 SYNOPSIS bif COMMAND [...] =head1 STATUS Although functional, bif is still under active development. Documentation and tests are incomplete, and the database schema changes regularly. B<DO NOT USE BIF FOR REAL DATA!> =head1 DESCRIPTION Bif is a project management tool with a command-line interface. It helps you track tasks, issues and bugs using a local database, exchanging updates with remote databases on demand. The tool has several features of interest to distributed project teams: =over =item Offline Operation Many bif actions work offline; you can create and update tasks and issues while disconnected from the network. =item Inter-project Cooperation Bif issues (and tasks) can be linked with (or copied to) multiple projects, mirroring the inter-project relationships that exist in the real world. =back This document is the bif manual and includes design background, terminology, general usage and a tutorial. Those who are impatient to get started may prefer to begin with one of the following: =over =item L<bif-doc> The table of contents for all bif documentation. =item L<bif-doc-intro> A very quick hands-on introduction to bif. =item L<bif-doc-faq> A list of common questions and answers. =back Reference documents for bif commands have titles like I<bif-command-name>. =head2 Design Background Communication is a core component of project management. For decentralized projects up to a certain scale, email often fulfills the communication requirements. Tasks, issues, feature requests and the like can exist in multiple inboxes as shared conversation topics. Unfortunately, email on its own provides no solution for managing the various types of structured meta-data (status, priority, due-date, etc) that we may want to assign and query throughout a project's lifetime. Managing structured data is exactly what relational databases are designed for, and bif takes advantage of SQLite for this purpose. A database schema helps ensure the integrity of the data, and relevant and insightful queries can be created using the full power of SQL. In addition, SQLite gives us fulltime local reporting and data modification - a wonderful independence from the network when we need it. However a database on its own is not a decentralized communication tool. Database implementations generally do not have a built-in functionality for the efficient exchange of updates. Distributed Version Control Systems (DVCS) on the other hand do provide a useful information exchange model, but the techniques of mapping textual differences to tree structures unfortunately don't translate well to row-based relational data sets. Bif therefore is an attempt at applying some DVCS I<princples> to a standard Create, Retrieve, Update and Delete (CRUD) database application. The end goal is a distributed communication system that carries both conversations and structured meta-data. The finer details of the advantages and trade-offs with regards the bif design can be found in L<bif-doc-design>(3) and L<bif-doc-faq>(3). =head2 Terminology =over =item Repository A bif repository is simply a configuration file and an SQLite database inside a directory named F<.bif>. All bif commands find the "current" repository by searching upwards through the file-system for such a directory. The database contains the history, status and relationships of a set of topics. The terms repository and database are often used interchangeably. =item Topic Topic is is a catch-all term for any task, issue, bug or feature etc which has a conversation (the history) plus associated meta data (status). Topics are identified by an integer ID which is unique to the local repository. Some topic types (issues for example) can be associated with multiple projects in which case they have multiple IDs and multiple status values. =item Project A project is also considered a topic, but one that comes with some extra functionality. The key property of a project is that it is a container for grouping together other topics and the status they can have. Multiple projects can be managed within a repository, and can be defined hierarchically. Projects are identified by their path name (which includes the parent's path), an at symbol "@" and their hub name. =item Hub A bif hub is conceptually synonymous with a project organisation. It consists of one or more repositories that act as synchronisation points for exchanging project activities. Hub repositories are usually located on remote servers and accessed through a L<ssh>(1) tunnel. A hub can be referred to by its globally unique name (typically an organisation's domain name) after it has been registered with the local repository. =back =head2 Command Structure Bif commands are structured where possible the same way an English speaker describes actions, verb followed by an optional type and a subject. For example: bif list topics bif update issue 34 The top level bif commands are as follows: drop remove an item from the database init initialize a new repository in .bif list list various things in the database log review change history and comments new create a new topic pull import something from elsewhere push export something to somewhere else show summarize the current status of a topic signup sign up with a hub provider sql run an SQL command against the database sync exchange updates with a hub update update or comment a topic upgrade upgrade a repository In addition, a couple of useful aliases are created by default: ls # bif list projects plan define run ll # bif list topics --status open lls # bif list topics --status stalled =head2 Global Options The following options are common to all commands: =over =item --debug, -D Turn on debugging statements, which are included in the I<stdout> stream. =item --help, -h Print a full usage message and exit. Some arguments and options are only shown when this option is used; a normal usage/error message may keep some rarely used options hidden. =item --no-pager Do not pipe a command's output to a pager. =item --user-repo Run commands against the user repository instead of the current repository. =back =head2 Command Interaction =over =item Input Some arguments and options not supplied on the command line are prompted for. An editor based on the C<$EDITOR> or C<$VISUAL> environment variables may also be invoked for certain types of input. =item Output Normal output is printed to I<stdout> or sometimes paged with L<less>(1) when I<stdout> is connected to a terminal. Error messages are sent to I<stderr>. =item Connectivity The only commands that (may) involve network communication are C<pull>, C<push>, and C<sync>. Everything else is a local action. =item Exit Status An exit value of zero indicates success. =back =head1 TUTORIAL =head2 Initialization Bif commands that make changes to a repository need to know your identity. Bif stores your name and email address in a special user repository which will be created the first time you run L<bif-init>. #!sh bif init # Initialising repository: /home/..../bif-user (v323) # Creating "self" identity: # Name: [Your Name] # Contact Method: [email] # Contact Email: [your@email.adddr] # Identity created: 1 # Initialising repository: /home/.../.bif (v323) # Importing identity from /home/.../bif-user The local (or current working) bif repository is created in F<$PWD/.bif/>. You do not have to remember the repository location when you are working in a subdirectory as it will be found automatically. An initialized repository always starts out empty; there is no bif equivalent of the git-clone command. =head2 Scenario 1 - Standalone Project Management The first scenario we present is for an individual wanting to keep track of their personal activities. =begin graph-easy (Local Repository [projects],[issues],[tasks]) # [issue] -- [project] # [task] -- [project] =end graph-easy + - - - - - - - - - -+ ' Local Repository ' ' ' ' +----------------+ ' ' | issues | ' ' +----------------+ ' ' +----------------+ ' ' | projects | ' ' +----------------+ ' ' +----------------+ ' ' | tasks | ' ' +----------------+ ' ' ' + - - - - - - - - - -+ =head3 Creating Projects The L<bif-new-project> command asks for a project path (like a name for identification), a title, and an initial comment. That information can be given on the command line if desired, otherwise it will be prompted for. #!sh bif new project # Path: [] todo # Title: [] Things to do # An editor is invoked for the comment Projects can be nested by defining them with a parent path and a "/": #!sh bif new project # Path: [] todo/today # Title: [] Things to do today # An editor is invoked for the comment Apart from visual organisation, the main impact of having nested projects is that child projects are included when importing or exporting them to hubs. Also, child projects will not be displayed in list commands if the parent project will not be displayed. A project has three different types of status associated with it. Project status is for the status of the project itself. Task and issue status is obviously for the status of tasks and issues associated with the project. New projects can be created using different status templates, given specific initial status, or copied/forked from other projects. =head3 Creating Tasks and Issues Tasks and issues are created similarly to projects, with a summary and a comment. As they exist only in the context of a project they may also require a project path if more than one project exists in the repository. #!sh bif new task # Project: [todo] todo/today # Title: Take out the rubbish # editor invoked - describe the task in more detail A task or an issue, like a project, is created with the default status for that type according to the project. An different initial status can be set with the C<--status> option: #!sh bif new issue --status needinfo # Project: [todo] todo/today # Title: Don't feel like taking out the rubbish # editor invoked - describe the task in more detail A comment can be provided directly with the C<--message> option if desired instead of having the editor invoked. =head3 Template Projects Do you have repeatable projects? =head3 Retrieving Information Tasks and issues can be viewed, commented on and updated with the appropriate commands: =head3 Updating Topics You can add comments to a topic with the L<bif-update> command. bif update ID [--message MESSAGE] If the C<--message> option is not used an editor will be invoked. A second argument can also be used to change the status of the topic, and a C<--title> option can be used to modify the topic summary. bif update ID [STATUS] [--title TITLE] Comments on a topic can also be nested. That is, you can use L<bif-reply> to respond to a previous update (or a previous reply). bif reply UPDATE_ID [--message MESSAGE] The C<UPDATE_ID> argument is actually a full C<ID.UPDATE_ID> value that you see with the L<bif-log> command. L<bif-reply> cannot modify a topic's status or title. =head3 Editing There is no mechanism for editing available in bif at this time. Be as wild in your comments as you like, but as with the rest of the internet, once your changes have been shared, you most likely can't alter them or take them back. First rule of commenting is: take a deep breath first. =head3 Deletion Of course, even after taking a deep breath you may anyway make a change to your repository that you didn't mean to. You are not alone; this happens to all of us. As long as you have not already synchronised your changes with a hub, they can be removed[1]. The L<bif-drop> command can be used to remove a particular comment, or an entire topic. [1] There is nothing magical or otherwise to stop you from dropping any change. However you will find that as soon as you re-synchronise with a hub that has those changes they will return to haunt you like the undead. =head2 Scenario 2 - External User Support The above scenario only uses local operations. However the real value of bif comes from its collaboration capabilities with others via the internet. The second scenario presents the situation where a user has an issue they want to report to a project team. =begin graph-easy (Local Repository [issue]) (Remote Hub [project]) [issue] --> [project] =end graph-easy + - - - - - - - - - -+ +- - - - - - - + ' Local Repository ' ' Remote Hub ' ' ' ' ' ' +----------------+ ' ' +----------+ ' ' | issue | ' --> ' | project | ' ' +----------------+ ' ' +----------+ ' ' ' ' ' + - - - - - - - - - -+ +- - - - - - - + =head3 Signing up with a provider As previously mentioned, a remote repository known as a hub is the mechanism for exchanging updates with others. You can either self host a hub on a server you control, or you can use a commercial provider. Regardless of who is hosting, the communication with the server is via ssh, for which you will want your own ssh keypair. Read the L<ssh-keygen>(1) manpage for how to create a keypair, and L<ssh-copy-id>(1) for how to transfer the public key to your own server. Commercial providers will probably use another method (such as the L<bifhub>(1) tool) for transfering the public key during their signup process. =head3 Registering With A Hub The reason for registering with a hub is to obtain the list of projects hosted there. #!sh bif pull hub my.org@provider.com By default the C<my.org> part of the provider address can be used as the hub name in other commands. To view the list of projects we give the hub alias to the L<bif-list-projects> command: #!sh bif list projects my.org Registering a project brings in a shallow copy - only the project and its status types are visible. The local user can create issues against this project just as if the project was local. =head3 Synchronising & Reviewing Updates Updates such as new topics or updates to existing topics are not exchanged until you run the L<bif-sync> command. bif sync What is useful after a L<bif-sync> call is to review what updates were transfered from the hub to the local repository. The L<bif-log> command (an alias for L<bif-log-repo> does just that. #!sh bif log repo =head2 Scenario 3 - Project Team Project team members probably want to know about every issue and task in a project. =begin graph-easy (Local [issue],[task],[project]) (Remote [issues],[tasks],[projects]) [issue] -- [project] [task] -- [project] [issues] -- [projects] [tasks] -- [projects] [issue] -- [issues] [task] -- [tasks] [project] -- [projects] (Local Repository [project],[issues],[tasks]) (Remote Hub [project],[issues],[tasks]) [projects] -- [project] =end graph-easy + - - - - - - + + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -+ ' Local ' ' Remote ' ' ' ' ' ' +---------+ ' ' +--------+ +----------+ ' ' | issue | ' --- ' | issues | --- | projects | ---+ ' ' +---------+ ' ' +--------+ +----------+ | ' ' ' ' | ' ' ' + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | ' ' | ' | ' | ' ' | ' | ' | ' ' | ' | ' | ' ' +---------+ ' | ' | ' ' | project | '------------------------+ ' | ' ' +---------+ ' ' | ' ' | ' ' | ' ' | ' ' | ' ' | ' ' | ' ' ' + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - | ' ' ' ' | ' ' +---------+ ' ' +--------+ | ' ' | task | ' --- ' | tasks | --------------------+ ' ' +---------+ ' ' +--------+ ' ' ' ' ' + - - - - - - + + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -+ =head3 Importing Projects A developer must also sign up and register a hub as described previously. They can then import an entire project into their local repository using the L<bif-pull-project> command. #!sh bif pull project devel@bifax.org Importing a project is a one-time activity. Updates to a project that occur after an import have occured are exchanged with the L<bif-sync> command. Any new issues or tasks added to the project anywhere will now synchronise locally. Likewise, any topics added locally will be distributed to the hub. The nice thing about pulling projects is that you only get the data that you want to see locally. As time goes on and projects are created and then completed, their relevance becomes less and less. New team members are not forced to download the entire project history to work on the current project. =head3 Inter-Project Issue Collaboration There are occasions when an issue reported in a project is also, or perhaps only in the domain of another project. Bif therefore has the ability to fork/copy/move individual issues. The L<bif-push-issue> command is the way to manually ask another project for support on a particular issue. The L<bif-push-issue> command asks for (or can be given) an update message the same way that a L<bif-update> command does: #!sh bif push issue 13 todo2 \ --action fork \ --message "also present in todo v2" The C<--action> option determines the relationship between the issue and its old and new projects. Note that this command is still local - the change will be propagated during the next L<bif-sync> call. As was mentioned in the introduction, issue status is tracked on a per-project basis. This means one project can consider the issue solved and another project can still consider the issue to be blocking. When an issue is pushed somewhere it therefore gains an extra topic ID, and can show up in multiple times in the output of the L<bif-list-topics> command. The L<bif-show-issue> command reveals the details: #!sh bif show issue 13 =head3 Task Collaboration?!? It does not make sense to distribute tasks across projects the same way issues can be. A single task cannot have multiple status: it is either done or it is not, regardless of which projects are interested in the outcome. There are however reasons for migrating tasks from one project to another. The obvious one is simply that they can be defined (by accident or circumstance) in the wrong place. The default L<bif-push-task> action therefore results in a I<move>. Alternatively the C<--action copy> option to L<bif-push-task> does what it says on the label, which can be useful if you have a template task in a project that you regularly want to use in other projects. Once again however, L<bif-new-project> probably has more interesting mechanisms for copying template-style projects. =head3 Synchronising Updates Even after you have imported or exported a project, updates will not be exchanged until you run the L<bif-sync> command. bif sync [ID] [HUB] By default all topics will be synchronised to all relevant hubs, but you can limit that as desired. #!sh bif sync unstable # ignore all other projects [TODO: describe the merge algorithm for meta data] =head2 Scenario 4 - Project Manager =head3 Exporting Projects How did a project get up to a hub in the first place? Well the inverse of L<bif-pull-project> is L<bif-push-project>. To mirror the todo project I<from> the local repository I<to> the bifax.org hub for example we would run the following: #!sh bif push project todo bifax.org As with importing, exporting a project is a one-off activity; further updates are exchanged with the L<bif-sync> command. =head3 Making New Releases Consider what happens when a software team makes a new stable release from their development version. This is effectively an internal fork - a new project that kicks off as the first project continues along the same path. At the time of the fork both projects will have exactly the same set of issues. From that point on the issue status may diverge based on project activities, but the issues they have in common have themselves not inherently changed. The C<--dup> option to the L<bif-new-project> command lets us deal with the above situation, which specifies an existing project from which to copy the project title and status names from. We can also specify that issues should be copied, moved, or forked with the C<--copy-issues>, C<--move-issues> and C<--fork-issues> options, each of which takes a status argument and can be called multiple times. #!sh bif new project v2 \ --dup devel \ --fork-issues open,stalled \ --move-issues closed There are similar copy/move options for tasks. In contrast to a copy, comments made on forked issues in one project will propagate to other projects, as if there was only a single issue, which is in fact the case. =head3 Inter-hub Collaboration There are times when an issue may be reported to one organisation, but should actually be resolved by a different organisation. This situation is often encountered by operating system distributors and also occurs when software has external dependencies. To address this bif makes it possible (under certain conditions) to collaborate on an issue across multiple hubs. [to be implemented] =head3 Hub Administration Bif is also used to create and manage hub repositories hosted by a hub provider. However to keep I<this> document focused on local repository operations the documentation for hub management is maintained separately in L<bifhub>. =head2 Repository Administration New versions of bif will necessarily require changes to the database structure, and possibly the data itself. The L<bif-upgrade> command exists to advance the database status to match that required by the bif software version. It is safe (but pointless) to run L<bif-upgrade> when the versions already match. When and how this command is run should be described in the release notes of newer versions of bif. One other command which is more about the repository than project management is L<bif-sql>. This is more of a developer or debugging aide for querying the database directly. This is needed as the bif software architecture prevents the SQLite command-line tool C<sqlite3> from working for some statements. =head1 FILES =over =item F<.bif/config> Repository configuration file. =item F<.bif/db.sqlite3> Repository SQLite database. =item F<$HOME/.local/share/bif-user/config> User configuration file. =back =head1 SEE ALSO L<bifhub>(1), L<bifsync>(1) =head1 SUPPORT Bif is community supported software, and the community expects (and should offer) respectful communication with all of its members. =over =item Website: L<http://bifax.org/bif/> =item Code Repository: git://bifax.org/bif.git/ =item Issue Tracker: Doesn't exit yet. =item Mailing List: Subscribe via L<http://www.freelists.org/list/bif-devel> and then send mail to <bif-devel@freelists.org>. =back If you have an issue with bif please first make the effort to read the documentation and/or search for an answer to your issue in the internet. If you are still stuck send us a message as if you were answering the following questions: =over =item * What does C<bif show VERSION> print? =item * What are goal you trying to achieve? =item * What commands are you running? =item * What (output) did you expect (to see)? =item * What (output) actually occured? =back We will most likely need to ask for more information from you. You can possibly speed things along by already running your commands with the C<--debug> flag turned on. =head1 AUTHOR Mark Lawrence E<lt>nomad@null.netE<gt> =head1 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE Copyright 2013-2014 Mark Lawrence <nomad@null.net> This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.