You can also do code reviews in pure git:
https://github.com/google/git-appraise
I used git bug before but found I missed being able to edit tickets with a Markdown editor. So I built this: https://github.com/LoumTechnologies/ticketry
In Git-bug: Distributed, offline-first bug tracker embedded in Gitgoogle
git-appraise
Go2015–2026
google / git-appraise
git-appraise
Distributed code review system for Git repos
38Distinct people
56Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
5.3KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Distributed code review system for Git repos
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
- git-bug/git-bug · linked in 4 of the same discussions
- aaiyer/bugseverywhere · linked in 2 of the same discussions
- dspinellis/git-issue · linked in 2 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 12:54:37 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year56 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2015-09-04 22:32:53 UTC to 2026-09-25 13:49:59 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 0 | 10 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 7 | 0 | 7 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 1 | 9 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 1 | 4 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
Distributed Code Review For Git
This repo contains a command line tool for performing code reviews on git
repositories.
Overview
This tool is a distributed code review system for git repos.
By "distributed", we mean that code reviews are stored inside of the repository
as git objects. Every developer on your team has their own copy of the review
history that they can push or pull. When pulling, updates from the remote
repo are automatically merged by the tool.
This design removes the need for any sort of server-side setup. As a result,
this tool can work with any git hosting provider, and the only setup required
is installing the client on your workstation.
Installation
Assuming you have the Go tools installed, run
the following command:
go install github.com/google/git-appraise/git-appraise@latest
Then, either make sure that ${GOPATH}/bin is in your PATH, or explicitly add the
"appraise" git alias by running the following command.
git config --global alias.appraise '!'"${GOPATH}/bin/git-appraise"
Windows:
git config --global alias.appraise "!%GOPATH%/bin/git-appraise.exe"
Requirements
This tool expects to run in an environment with the following attributes:
The git command line tool is installed, and included in the PATH.
The tool is run from within a git repo.
The git command line tool is configured with the credentials it needs to
push to and pull from the remote repos.
Usage
Requesting a code review:
git appraise request
Pushing code reviews to a remote:
git appraise push [<remote>]
Pulling code reviews from a remote:
git appraise pull [<remote>]
Listing open code reviews:
git appraise list
Showing the status of the current review, including comments:
git appraise show
Showing the diff of a review:
git appraise show --diff [--diff-opts "<diff-options>"] [<review-hash>]
Commenting on a review:
git appraise comment -m "<message>" [-f <file> [-l <line>]] [<review-hash>]
Accepting the changes in a review:
git appraise accept [-m "<message>"] [<review-hash>]
Submitting the current review:
git appraise submit [--merge | --rebase]
A more detailed getting started doc is available here.
Metadata
The code review data is stored in git-notes,
using the formats described below. Each item stored is written as a single
line of JSON, and is written with at most one such item per line. This allows
the git notes to be automatically merged using the "cat_sort_uniq" strategy.
Since these notes are not in a human-friendly form, all of the refs used to
track them start with the prefix "refs/notes/devtools". This helps make it
clear that these are meant to be read and written by automated tools.
When a field named "v" appears in one of these notes, it is used to denote
the version of the metadata format being used. If that field is missing, then
it defaults to the value 0, which corresponds to this initial version of the
formats.
Code Review Requests
Code review requests are stored in the "refs/notes/devtools/reviews" ref, and
annotate the first revision in a review. They must conform to the
request schema.
If there are multiple requests for a single commit, then they are sorted by
timestamp and the final request is treated as the current one. This sorting
should be done in a stable manner, so that if there are multiple requests
with the same timestamp, then the last such request in the note is treated
as the current one.
This design allows a user to update a review request by re-running the
git appraise request command.
Continuous Integration Status
Continuous integration build and test results are stored in the
"refs/notes/devtools/ci" ref, and annotate the revision that was built and
tested. They must conform to the ci schema.
Robot Comments
Robot comments are comments generated by static analysis tools. These are
stored in the "refs/notes/devtools/analyses" ref, and annotate the revision.
They must conform to the analysis schema.
Review Comments
Review comments are comments that were written by a person rather than by a
machine. These are stored in the "refs/notes/devtools/discuss" ref, and
annotate the first revision in the review. They must conform to the
comment schema.
Integrations
Libraries
Go (use git-appraise itself)
Rust
Graphical User Interfaces
Git-Appraise-Web
Plugins
Eclipse
Jenkins
Mirrors to other systems
GitHub Pull Requests
Phabricator Revisions
Contributing
Please see the CONTRIBUTING file for information on contributing to Git Appraise.
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
56 sourcesI'm particularly fond of the concepts within git-appraise, gits back to the federated foundations
https://github.com/google/git-appraise (unmaintained)
In The August 17 outage, and the work aheadThis was a really intriguing project that became Google abandonware.
https://github.com/google/git-appraise
The idea is to use git-notes for issues & PRs, because git is already distributed by design and these elements of SDLC centralized our usage.
In Gleam Is Now on TangledThere were a few efforts like that back in the day (when people still cared about offline and store-and-forward-style operation[1]), like Bugs Everywhere[3], git-appraise[4] which stored its data in Git’s little-known “notes” namespace[5], and git-bug[6] which for some reason I’ve seen mentioned quite a bit in such threads recently unlike the others—though I’m not complaining about one of them getting mentioned at least.
Also, as far as read-only access, Gerrit review data is actually accessible via Git[7] (for review ABCDE, pull refs/changes/DE/ABCDE/meta instead of one of the usual numbered refs under that prefix), and someone made the effort[8] to make it accessible via Git notes too (as mentioned in the post on Git notes that I linked above).
Also also, the Fossil SCM of SQLite fame somewhat famously does[9] do this kind of thing with
Read the rest
its builtin bug tracker. It has been relegated to obscurity partly as an accident of history (Git won) and partly on the merits (it is aggressively hostile to the kind of history rewriting we are used to routinely—if not always wisely—performing in Git).
Going back to working on top of Git, though, I think that part of the problem is that you really want custom merge strategies when you’re trying to build a fancy datatype, and Git’s support for them requires a lot of wrapping to make it seamless (the location tracking stuff in git-annex[10] is the only success story I am aware of, and that’s a sizeable Haskell project). The existing porcelain is just too rigid.
[1] Can I have a viable replacement for PGP for that use case? Please stop telling me that I don’t exist and should screw off[2]? Please?..
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44239804
[3] https://github.com/aaiyer/bugseverywhere
[4] https://github.com/google/git-appraise
[5] https://tylercipriani.com/blog/2022/11/19/git-notes-gits-coo..., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44345334 (579 points, 146 comments)
[6] https://github.com/git-bug/git-bug
[7] https://gerrit-review.googlesource.com/Documentation/note-db...
[8] https://gerrit.googlesource.com/plugins/reviewnotes/+/refs/h...
[9] https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/bugtheory.wiki
[10] https://git-annex.branchable.com/
Seems as a good idea to pitch git-appraise https://github.com/google/git-appraise
I'm not part of the project at all, but this is the only offline code review system I've found.
In Migrating Dillo from GitHubThere is also https://github.com/google/git-appraise which uses git-notes and a plugin (with UI server included)
In Show HN: Tangled – Git collaboration platform built on atprotoOver the years I've come to the conclusion that all these UIs on top of Git make little sense. Git itself is already distributed, which goes beyond federation. Exposing a Git repo over the network is trivial with HTTP or SSH. It supports code review workflows via email, though I really like the approach of storing reviews inside the repo itself via something like git-appraise[1]. Integrating it with CI/CD pipelines _can_ be simple, if the pipeline can be triggered by pushes.
Instead we've created these centralized UIs over Git, and are trying to get them to integrate with one another. This seems backwards to me since Git is already decentralized.
[1]: https://github.com/google/git-appraise
In Forgejo: A self-hosted lightweight software forgeHere's an example I like to share, re: when LLMs can be better than doing the searching myself: https://topicalsource.dev/chat/023e7e54-947b-490d-bcd8-89cc2...
I understand the concepts, it's not complex, but it's something I don't use or do daily. One of the other differences with working with LLMs over search is that I can provide a lot more input as part of my query. That context is often used within the answer, a much better experience than having to map multiple other examples onto mine.
Also, I am not the author of a complex configuration management tool. Not sure what you are misreading. I have authored a deterministic code generation tool, maybe that is what you mean? It however is an alternative to LLM code generation that existed prior to the current LLM hype cycle
If you don't like LLMs, that is totally fine. You don't need to
Read the rest
put down other people's usage or question why or how they get value out of it with feigns. Perhaps you might consider spending more time with the new knowledge tools that will not be going away. I just tried out the new Gemini Research assistant with the query...
"""
google has an open source project that enables pull requests to be embedded into a git repository and also comes with a gui. Can you help me find this project?
"""
It took a couple of minutes and came back with exactly the project I was looking for. Saved me a bunch of time and headache trying to find this: https://github.com/google/git-appraise
I didn't have to know the exact search words or phrases, I didn't have to filter through multiple search results. I worked on this post while my LLM assistant did it for me
git-appraise[1] implements that concept. From Google, no less.
I've never used it, or seen it used in the wild, but it always seemed intriguing, and like the obvious approach. The web UI traction is far greater for this to have any serious usage, but I wonder if Git had that ability from the start, if the web UI concept would've taken off as it did.
[1]: https://github.com/google/git-appraise
In Gitlab's ActivityPub architecture blueprint> There's no ready record of the review process -- the comments. They eventually disappear
I wonder if someone could build something clever with git-notes [0] to capture such discussions in the repo itself.
I'm sure others have thought about it already, so there must be some kind of pitfall... A little more searching finds projects like git-appraise. [1]
[0] https://git-scm.com/docs/git-notes
[1] https://github.com/google/git-appraise
In "LibreOffice is better at reading old Word files than Word"Absolutely.
Going further, the little-known git-notes [1] feature also uses its own reference namespace, `refs/notes/`
Going even further, Gerrit [2] leverages the wide-open reference namespace/directories to create its own. For example, pushing under the `refs/for/` namespace creates a new review, and specific reviews can be looked up under the `refs/changes/` namespace.
Even even further, Gerrit's special repos All-Users.git and All-Projects.git are "databases" for project configuration and user configuration, where for example external IDs (like usernames) are stored under the special `refs/meta/external-ids` ref/branch. This has the notable benefit that all configuration changes are tracked and auditable.
I believe git-appraise [3] also leverages special reference namespaces in Git for performing its review duties (but I don't know de
Read the rest
tails) Edit: actually no, it "just" leverages git-notes.
[1] https://git-scm.com/docs/git-notes
[2] https://gerrit-review.googlesource.com/Documentation/note-db...
[3] https://github.com/google/git-appraise
What do you need for wikis? Just put text files in a folder?
Bug tracking in git: https://github.com/MichaelMure/git-bug
Code review in git: https://github.com/google/git-appraise
In Cloudflare API DownI believe their docs cover the scenario of reviewing someone's code by pushing your review to the git repo, and others can use `git appraise list` to see open pull requests.
https://github.com/google/git-appraise/blob/master/docs/tuto...
A trivial git-hook could be setup for automating email notifications: https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Customizing-Git-Git-Hooks
EDIT: add link to git-hooks docs.
In Git-appraise – Distributed Code Review for GitGit-appraise – Distributed Code Review for Git
253 points · Open discussionYou can do that with git-appraise: https://github.com/google/git-appraise
In Commit comments no longer appear in the pull request timelineShowing the 15 most recent of 56 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.