Setting up the GitHub or GitLab integration is vital to ensure that code changes are associated with the correct work items. This will allow the team to all stay in sync with the status of code changes.
To install the integration, go to "Organization settings" in the ⚙️ menu next to your organization name and click on “Integrations” in the side bar, or search for “Integration settings” the Kitemaker command (cmd/ctrl+k). Then select the GitHub or GitLab integration and follow the installation steps.
Linking to work items
There are three ways to make code changes appear in work items:
- Mention the work item in the commit message
- Mention the work item in the merge/pull request description, or
- Use a so-called “magic branch”
Mentioning work items in messages is straightforward. Just ensure that the work item number (the ABC-123 visible on every work item) is in the description. You can easily copy the work item number from a board or the work item screen by pressing Cmd/Ctrl+i.
Using so-called magic branches, every commit and pull/merge request will be linked to the work item.
Magic branches can be created by having the work item number in the branch name. Kitemaker will also automatically generate personal magic branch names for each work item. To use them, simply click the branch icon on the top of the work item screen, or press cmd/ctrl+shift+g.
Merge/pull requests
Notice that Kitemaker will show the status of every merge/pull request. It will be shown in the activity feed:
On cards and on the top of work items we will also show an icon showing the status of merge/pull requests. If there is at least one open request, we will show the “open merge/pull request” icon, and if you hover this icon you will see a list of all the merge/pull requests associated with the work item:
GitHub autolinks
Using GitHub autolinks you can automatically link mentions of Kitemaker work items in the GitHub UI back to Kitemaker. To configure them, click on “Settings” and then “Autolink references” in your GitHub Repo. Fill in the form as follows:
- Choose “Numeric”
- Set the “Reference prefix” equal to the key of your space followed by a hyphen. If your work items have identifiers like “ACM-123”, your reference prefix is “ACM-“
- Set the “Target URL” equal to the URL of your space followed by the string “<num>”. For example, if a work item in your space has a URL like “https://toil.kitemaker.co/5vSlfp-AcmeCorp/OKubvj-AcmeCorp/items/123” then target URL would be “https://toil.kitemaker.co/5vSlfp-AcmeCorp/OKubvj-AcmeCorp/<num>”
cmd/ctrl+i and its link using cmd/ctrl+shift+iOnce you’ve set up the autolink references in the GitHub UI, mentions of Kitemaker work items will be automatically linked back to Kitemaker:
