Building a GitHub Repository Cloner and Commit Crawler with Go

Hello everyone!

In this post, I'm excited to share a project I've been working on: a GitHub Repository Cloner and Commit Crawler. This Go application is designed to clone a user-provided list of repositories and then crawl through the commit history of each, all without utilizing GitHub APIs.

What Does It Do?

Our application has a set of specific features that make it both versatile and easy to use:

1. Repository Cloning: Clone multiple GitHub repositories using SSH. This is a secure and efficient way to fetch repositories for local analysis.

2. Commit Crawling: Traverse the commit history of each repository, providing valuable insight into past code changes.

3. Customization: You can specify how many days in the past you want to crawl and for which author.
   Security: The app uses your personal SSH keys for secure operations.

4. Security: Uses your personal SSH keys for secure operations.

Why Did I Build This?

When working with open-source projects or conducting codebase analysis, you often need to examine the commit history of multiple repositories. GitHub APIs can provide this data, but there are limitations and complexity in handling API responses.

Building a tool that uses Git directly to clone repositories and crawl commit history bypasses these restrictions and offers greater flexibility.

How Does It Work?

Here's a quick rundown of the steps involved in using the application:

• Installation: First, you need to clone the repository and build the project.

git clone git@github.com:KaranJagtiani/go-git-cloner.git

• Setup SSH Key: Copy your SSH key that has access to the repositories you wish to crawl in the ssh_key folder.

• Configuration: The config.yaml file is your control center. Here, you specify the repositories to clone, the author email, and the days you wish to crawl in the past.

• Build: Build the project as a binary.
  

go build -o out/go-git-cloner

• Execution: Run the built binary.

./out/go-git-cloner

Voila! Your specified repositories are cloned, and the commit history is crawled.

Open Source Contribution

The project is open-source and contributions are always welcome! To contribute, simply fork the project, create your feature branch, commit your changes, and open a pull request.

Wrapping Up

The GitHub Repository Cloner and Commit Crawler offers an efficient and secure method to clone and crawl GitHub repositories, providing a flexible tool for codebase analysis. I hope it helps in your development journey!

The project is open-source and I welcome any contributions, suggestions, and feedback. You can find the project here.

If you have any questions, want to connect with me, or are interested in checking out my other work, feel free to visit my website: https://karanjagtiani.com. I'm always excited to connect with fellow developers and open-source enthusiasts. Looking forward to hearing from you!