gitogram

The Gitogram Project

Gitogram is a CLI Git-based messenger, where you can treat all messages as commits, topics as branches and group chats as repos. All branches can be merged in main branch and so on.

Main idea came from my father's message - @viordash:

Translation:

A git-based messenger. Just a UI wrapper over the git. Messages are comments on a commit. One repo is one group chat. Authorization is native from git. It is convenient to discuss a separate topic, aka a separate brunch. Then you can pour the discussion into the general chat. Or throw it out by closing the chat. Or squash just a discussion digest

Prerequisities

To use Gitogram you should somewhere store your repositories, aka chats. You can setup Git service, e.g. Gogs, on your server.

How to setup Gogs and configure your Git credentials

1. Run Gogs in Docker:

Pull image and create a local directory for volume:

docker pull gogs/gogs
mkdir -p /var/gogs

Run Docker:

docker run \
--name=gitogram-server \
--publish 8022:22 \
--publish 3000:3000 \
-v `pwd`/gogs-data/:/data gogs/gogs

• name - Docker container name.
• publish (first) - instructs Docker to open port 8022. We will use this port to access Gogs via git/ssh.
• publish (second) - defines 3000 as the port at which you will be able to access the web interface of Gogs.

1. Setup Gogs

   Open Gogs web interface at it's address and 3000 port. At the setup page fill this fields:

   • Database Type - SQLite3.
   • Domain - Replace localhost with the your IP address.
   • Application URL - In the predefined string, replace only localhost with the your IP address, e.g. http://192.168.0.170:3000/.

   You can optionally setup Admin Account in Optional Settings:

   • Username - Set your Git username.
   • Password - Set your password with at least 8 characters.
   • E-mail - Set your Git email address.

   To finish setting up your Gogs press Install Gogs button. After that, you'll be able to login with defined Username and Password.

2. Create your repository

   To create your own repository click green plus button. Fill all required fiedls and click Create Repository button.

3. Setup your SSH keys

   Full Github guide to setup your SSH keys: Connecting to GitHub with SSH

   Generate a new SSH key with the following Terminal command and press Enter for every promts you'll get during generating:

   ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_git_email@example.com"
   

   Start the ssh-agent in the background:

   eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
   

   Add new generated SSH key to the ssh-agent:

   ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
   

   Add your SSH key to Gogs account. To do this follow to Account Settings page (equalizer-like button on right-top of Gogs web page), then open SSH keys Settings page and press Add Key button. Add your own Key Name, then copy the SSH public key with the following Terminal command and paste it to Content field:

   cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub
   

   Press green Add Key button.

   Your .ssh/known_hosts should be placed at $HOME

To build:

$ make run

How to add chat and start messaging

1. Follow the repository web page, and click on the black cloud button. Choose SSH link and copy it.
2. In the Gitogram press New chat + button, paste and modify copied link, so it should look like this:

   ssh://git@192.168.0.170:8022/my-name/demo-repo.git
   

   Click Add button.
3. After successfully adding a new chat, you'll see it on the left Chats panel. Chosse your chat, press Enter, follow to Message field and start typing. Send message with Enter.