MeerCat
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MeerCat

MeerCat houses a set of tools to support users, developers, and managers of ECP code repositories on GitHub.

It is one component of the larger UO-IDEAS project (GremCat).

MeerCat's Focus is on a GitHub Pull Request

As a repo changes over time, there is a need for diligence that a change will not cause a misalignment with documentation, tests or the general code base. Typically this falls on a conversation between a Pull Request (PR) author and reviewer to hash out potential problems. Also, typically, there are Continuous Integration (CI) tools to support the PR process including automated running of tests (unit and regression) and code quality checkers. MeerCat is a complement to these CI tools as they relate to Pull Requests. It monitors GitHub events and goes into action when it sees the creation of a Pull Request.

MeerCat Pull Request Support

MeerCat has grown ground-up, talking to developers involved with ECP projects about their needs. While we are interested in supporting both PR authors and reviewers, it is reviewers that we have tended to focus on. As one might expect, their ideal is to see a final PR that has been well designed and thought out by the author. Thus, MeerCat's rationale is that by supporting the author, we meet our end goal of supporting the reviewer. Before we list the author tools we provide, there is a big caveat: we have found that most ECP projects have their own unique requirements and workflow: there is no one size that fits all. Hence, we allow a project to turn on or off features of MeerCat as they see the need.

MeerCat is unobtrusive

The features of MeerCat are made available through the (this) MeerCat website. You have the option of getting a brief feedback comment on GitHub from MeerCat, when a PR is created, which provides the link to the full analysis. It is up to author and reviewer to choose to use this analysis or not. In particular, unlike some CI tools, MeerCat makes no attempt to block or fail a PR.

MeerCat's analysis can be applied to any PR, open or closed, from the MeerCat website.

If you are interested

If you are interested in adding your project to MeerCat, please contact the project lead, Stephen Fickas (stephenfickas@gmail.com).