git-activity

Git Activity Fetcher

Fetch git commit history from local repositories into per-day cached JSON atoms at ~/.cache/recap/git/{repo}/{YYYY-MM-DD}/log.json. These atoms feed the /recap orchestrator for progressive timescale synthesis.

Invocation

/recap:git-activity --repos coworker:~/Work/basecamp/coworker --since 2026-03-23
/recap:git-activity --repos coworker:~/Work/basecamp/coworker,house-skills:~/Work/basecamp/house-skills --since 2026-03-23 --until 2026-03-30
/recap:git-activity --repos coworker:~/Work/basecamp/coworker --since 2026-03-23 --reuse
/recap:git-activity --repos coworker:~/Work/basecamp/coworker --since 2026-03-23 --author "Jeremy Daer" --all-branches

Contract

• Idempotent: same input produces same output, safe to re-run
• Day-cached: one JSON file per repo per day at ~/.cache/recap/git/{repo}/{YYYY-MM-DD}/log.json, or under a scope directory when --author or --all-branches narrows or widens the log
• --reuse: skip fetch if cache exists and is marked complete
• No API calls: reads local git repos only

Quick Run

# 1. Determine date range
SINCE=$(date -d "7 days ago" +%Y-%m-%d)
UNTIL=$(date +%Y-%m-%d)

# 2. Run the fetcher
"$SKILL_DIR/scripts/git-activity.sh" \
  --repos "coworker:$HOME/Work/basecamp/coworker" \
  --since "$SINCE" --until "$UNTIL"

# 3. Verify cache
ls ~/.cache/recap/git/coworker/
cat ~/.cache/recap/git/coworker/$SINCE/log.json | jq '.metadata'

Where $SKILL_DIR = directory containing this SKILL.md.

Output Format

Each log.json contains:

{
  "repo": "coworker",
  "date": "2026-03-24",
  "commits": [
    {
      "hash": "abc123...",
      "short_hash": "abc123",
      "subject": "Add weekly digest skill",
      "author": "Jeremy",
      "date": "2026-03-24T10:30:00-05:00",
      "body": "Extended commit message..."
    }
  ],
  "metadata": { "complete": true, "count": 3 }
}

Arguments

Argument	Required	Description
--repos	Yes	Comma-separated name:path pairs
--since	Yes	Start date (YYYY-MM-DD)
--until	No	End date (default: today)
--author	No	Keep only commits whose author matches this pattern (git log --author)
--all-branches	No	Log every local and remote-tracking branch, not just the checked-out one
--reuse	No	Skip fetch if cache exists and is complete

By default the fetcher logs the checked-out branch and every author: the repo's activity. For one person's work, pass --author and --all-branches, so coworkers' commits drop out and commits on other branches, pushed or not, come in.

Cache Structure

~/.cache/recap/git/
  coworker/
    2026-03-24/log.json
    2026-03-25/log.json
    all-branches-author-jeremy-daer-189a21ec/
      2026-03-24/log.json
  house-skills/
    2026-03-24/log.json

A filtered fetch caches under its own scope directory, named from the filters, so --reuse never hands a filtered run the unfiltered day or the other way round. The name ends in a digest of the exact --author pattern: Jeff and ^Jeff$ match different commits, so they must not share a directory.

Day-sized atoms enable progressive aggregation: a weekly digest reads 7 daily atoms. A monthly digest reads ~30. Different timescales, same data.

Failure Modes

Symptom	Cause	Fix
"not a git repo"	Path doesn't point to repo	Check --repos paths
Empty commits for a day	No commits on that date	Expected — empty days are cached as complete
awk/jq parse error	Unusual characters in commit messages	Falls back to simpler format automatically