GitSocial

Git-native collaboration platform

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Git made code portable, but nothing around the code is: a clone carries every commit, author, signature and branch, while the issues, pull requests and comments stay in the host's database, and the notes of each AI agent stay in its own files.

GitSocial's philosophy is that the commit was always enough: it has an author and a time, it carries a signature, and its message carries structured trailers, so an issue or a pull request can be stored as a commit with the right trailers. GitSocial writes this collaboration data on gitmsg/* branches alongside the code, following the GitMsg protocol.

GitSocial is a single open source binary: run gitsocial tui or gitsocial serve in any git repository to explore it, or gitsocial import to bring the issues, pull requests and releases of a project from GitHub or GitLab. You can also publish the repository and a static site to an S3 bucket with gitsocial push; GitSocial.org is hosted this way on Cloudflare R2.

For data sovereignty, static hosting, portability, AI agent memory, verified identity and the alternatives, see Why GitSocial.

Install

macOS / Linux with Homebrew

brew trust gitsocial-org/tap
brew install gitsocial-org/tap/gitsocial

Windows

scoop bucket add gitsocial https://github.com/gitsocial-org/scoop-bucket.git
scoop install gitsocial

Other

• Install script: curl -fsSL https://gitsocial.org/install.sh | sh
• Go: go install github.com/gitsocial-org/gitsocial/cli/gitsocial@latest
• Binary: download from the releases page

GitSocial needs git 2.38 or later.

Quick Start

In any cloned repository, show the code, the commits and the tags in the browser:

gitsocial serve

To bring the issues, pull requests and releases from GitHub or GitLab:

gitsocial import -n 20

-n caps the items per type. Drop it for a full import, which can take a while on a large repository.

Terminal UI

Use the TUI to browse and create the same items and to configure the repository (demo):

gitsocial tui

Publish to a bucket

Any S3-compatible bucket works, whether AWS S3, Cloudflare R2, DigitalOcean Spaces or Hetzner Object Storage, and it serves as a git remote and a static site at the same time.

To mirror a GitHub or GitLab project into a bucket:

gitsocial mirror https://github.com/owner/repo s3://s3.example.com/mybucket/repo

To publish your own repository:

gitsocial config credentials set s3.example.com
gitsocial remote add s3://s3.example.com/mybucket/myrepo --default --site
gitsocial push

A private bucket needs no further setup, and anyone with the credentials can clone it:

gitsocial clone s3://s3.example.com/mybucket/myrepo

For a public project, enable public access in the dashboard of the hosting provider, and anyone can then git clone from the public URL of the bucket. To serve the HTML pages at your own domain, configure the domain in the same dashboard, then set the URL and push again:

gitsocial config site set url https://example.org/
gitsocial push

Documentation

Core

Document	Description
GitMsg Protocol	Core message format, headers, refs, versioning
S3 Remote	Buckets as git remotes, clone, push, thin fork buckets
Static Site	Repository website served from the bucket: timeline, issues, pull requests, releases, code
Identity Verification	Attestation sources, commands, caching
Notifications	Notification types, scopes, and triggers
Settings	User preferences, keys, personal sync across machines

Extensions

Document	Description	Spec
Social	Posts, comments, lists, timeline, followers	GitSocial
PM	Issues, milestones, sprints, labels, boards	GitPM
Review	Pull requests, feedback, forks, version tracking, cross-forge scenarios	GitReview
Release	Releases, artifacts, checksums, signatures, SBOM	GitRelease
Memo	Tiered memos for knowledge as commits	none

Clients

Document	Description
CLI	Commands, flags, output formats
TUI	Per-view layouts, keybindings
JSON-RPC	Client integration over stdio
Agent Skill	AI-assisted workflows for Claude Code, Cursor and other agents

Development

Document	Description
Contributing	Fork, build, submit a pull request, report a bug
Architecture	Layers, packages, cache schema, TUI structure
Style	Prose, help text, errors, comments, commits
Testing	Test tiers, check stages, coverage, supported platforms

License

MIT