Bartle

Bartle helps teams write clean, consistent commit messages across repositories.

A lightweight Git companion built for developers and teams who care about clean history.

Features

• Single source of truth 🧩 .bartle.yaml defines commit rules for your team
• Git-integrated ⚙️ runs automatically via commit-msg hook
• Conventional or JIRA styles 🔍 out of the box
• Fast failure 🚫 reject invalid commits before they hit your repo

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Installation (Temporary)

# build from source
git clone https://github.com/RyanTalbot/bartle.git
cd bartle
go build -o bartle .

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Quick Start

Get up and running with Bartle in under a minute.

1. Initialize Bartle in your repository

bartle init

This will create a .bartle.yaml file in your project root.

# .bartle.yaml
style: conventional
ai:
  enabled: false
  provider: openai
  model: gpt-5
  api_key: env:OPENAI_API_KEY
  temperature: 0.2
rules:
  scope_required: true
  max_line_length: 72
  lowercase_start: false
  types: [feat, fix, docs, refactor, test, chore]
hook:
  auto_apply: false
  block_on_fail: true

2. Install the Git hook

bartle install-hook

This adds a commit-msg hook to your repository, so every commit is validated automatically.

3. Commit your changes

Bad commits will be rejected, and valid commits will be accepted.

git commit -m "this is a bad commit"
# ❌ Invalid commit message:
# - missing ':' separator (e.g., type(scope): subject)

git commit -m "feat(ui): add button"
# ✅ Commit message is valid!

4. (Optional) Lint your commits manually

You can run the linter manually to check your commit messages first.

bartle lint -m "feat(api): add pagination"
# ✅ Commit message is valid!

bartle lint -m "wrong format"
# ❌ Invalid commit message:
#  - not conventional format (e.g., type(scope): subject)

5. (Optional) Uninstall the git hook

You can uninstall the hook at any time.

bartle uninstall-hook