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Mac Siri
Mac Siri

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Tools I use to stay on top of Github's notifications

In order to maintain a lively open source community, it is crucial to stay actively engaged with all issues and pull requests. Everything should be looked at and nothing should be missed, but that is much easier said than done. In the effort to stay on top of it all, here are a few apps that I use to stay sane and efficient.

github-notifications


I like to think of github-notifications as an improved version of the vanilla notification page. The main highlight of this app is that it also provides a comment form. This provides a much better way to get an overview on all unread notifications.

Octobox

octobox
Streamlining Github Notification into the email-like interface is an amazing way to manage notifications. Octobox provides multiple filter options along with a native search feature. They've also added an "archive" feature that allows you to hide any completed notifications.

Workona

workona example
Ever find yourself opening one GitHub issue right after another and eventually losing track of what you were trying to do? This is a relatively new tool that just came out to address that problem. It has already improved my workflow and reduced distraction. Workona provides a cleaner way to manage tabs — instead of keeping multiple windows open, you can now create "workspaces". So far, I have 3 workspaces: one for general browsing, one dedicated to handling Octobox notifications, and one for production monitoring.

These three tools have helped me a lot. Let me know in the comments if there is anything else I should try.

Top comments (8)

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ilevex profile image
Levente Kurusa

Wow, thanks for tip on Workona, Mac! That is an absolutely brilliant tool!

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ssimontis profile image
Scott Simontis

It's awesome that you are so passionate about open source and development in general, but I would encourage you to make sure you have tools to disconnect completely every now and then too. Burnout is not fun, my friend.

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art4 profile image
Art4

It would improve my productivity a lot if GitHub would show new issues, comments, etc in the activity RSS feed like it was some years ago.

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tedspare profile image
Ted Spare

I've written something similar, updated with newer tools like Meteorite, Lotus, and Neat!

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arojunior profile image
Junior Oliveira

I’m working on another tool to help people to stay up to date with what is happening on Github: awesomefeed.js.org/

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jvarness profile image
Jake Varness

It looks like each of the different apps has different features and functionality that are useful in different ways. That's kind of cool if you ask me!

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Cees Timmerman

What does github-notifications do that Octobox doesn't?