remotemob

Mob is a console tool to work in a remote mob (or pair) with git.

• Handover code fast between drivers
• Remembers order of drivers
• Keeps track of state (working, waiting for next, stopped) to eliminate risk of conflicts and lost work
• Use any branch as base

• Installing
  • Cargo
  • Manually
• Usage
  • FAQ
    • How do I remove all traces of mob from a repo?
    • Where is the configuration stored?
    • How do I show current status?
    • Work duration is set to 15 but we must stop for a meeting in 7 minutes
• Hooks
• How it works
• Inspiration and other tools

Installing

Cargo

Install rust and run:

cargo install remotemob

Manually

Download the latest release and unpack it to somewhere in your PATH.

Usage

Note: It's safe to try mob! It prints all git commands it runs and if you decide that it's not for you can remove all traces.

• mob start creates a new feature branch or syncs the branch from the previous driver.
• mob next commits all changes to the feature branch and hands over to the next driver.
• mob done stages all changes on the feature branch for commit on the base branch (normally main).

Run mob for help on more commands.

FAQ

How do I remove all traces of mob from a repo?

1. Run mob done to remove the mob branch. Either commit the changes or run git reset HEAD --hard to discard changes.
2. Run mob clean to remove the mob-meta branch.
3. Delete ~/.mob if you don't want to use mob anymore

Where is the configuration stored?

Configuration local to you is stored in ~/.mob. Configuration for a repository is stored in an orphan branch named mob-meta.
mob start creates all configuration needed to run. It is always safe to run mob clean to remove the repository config and start fresh.

How do I show current status?

Run mob status

Work duration is set to 15 but we must stop for a meeting in 7 minutes

Run mob start 7

Hooks

You can add hooks to your configuration in ~/.mob to notify you when your turn is over or to take over screen sharing when you start.

...
[hooks]
after_start="take_screen.sh"
after_timer="say 'mob next NEXT_DRIVER'"

Hooks are executed by a sh and can contain two variables:

• CURRENT_DRIVER: Always the name you configured in ~/.mob
• NEXT_DRIVER: Next driver or anyone if you are the first in a session. It is empty on all before_* hooks.

The available hooks are:

• before_start: Run as soon as possible when you run mob start, before checking that it's your turn or that your working directory is clean.

• after_start: Right after you've started a session with mob start but before the timer started. This is a good hook for taking over the screen.

• after_timer: Run when your turn ended. The first time you run mob start it tries to find commands to play a sound and show a desktop notification to populate this hook.

• before_next: Before running mob next, NEXT_DRIVER is not available.

• after_next: Before running mob next, NEXT_DRIVER is either a name or anyone.

• before_done: Before the squashing and deleting branches.

• after_done: After done has been run, NEXT_DRIVER is not available.

How it works

mob uses an orphan branch called mob-meta to save session state and settings. You can view the session content with mob status [-r] and delete it with mob clean.

Session {
    drivers: Drivers(
        [
            "Paul",
            "Leo",
            "Ella",
        ],
    ),
    branches: Branches {
        branch: "mob-session",
        base_branch: "main",
    },
    settings: Some(
        Settings {
            commit_message: "mob sync [skip ci]",
            work_duration: 10,
        },
    ),
    state: Working {
        driver: "Ella",
    },
}

The session can be in 3 different states:

Inspiration and other tools

Inspiration for this tool comes from Remote mob programming and their tool mob written in Go.

I did this rewrite to:

• remember the order of drivers
• use any branch as base branch, not only master or main
• know about the state so we get nice warnings instead of git conflicts and lost refs.
• and of course... rust ;)

To find other tools look at the mob programming timer tag on github