October 31, 2025
Branch names ignite a flame war
Git CLI tool for intelligently creating branch names
New tool names your code branches; devs debate: genius, meh, or just not AI
TLDR: gibr auto-names code branches from your issue tracker to keep things tidy. Commenters split between “nice helper but other tools do this,” “branch names don’t matter—commit messages do,” and “thank goodness it’s not AI,” with a wildcard crew proposing AI-drafted names after the code is written.
Meet gibr, a command-line helper that grabs your to-do from popular trackers (like GitHub, GitLab, Jira, and Linear) and auto-creates a clean, consistent branch name so you don’t have to sweat it. Think of branches as little work-in-progress lanes in the world’s most-used code system (Git). The tool’s pitch: fewer naming fights, more doing. The comments’ vibe: spicy.
Fans nodded at the convenience, but quickly pulled receipts. One user waved at Linear, saying it already does this “really well,” while others showed off their own one-liners and aliases—proof that many devs have home‑rolled solutions. Then came the plot twist: a commenter proposed letting an AI name the branch after the code is written—yes, the robot does the labeling—linking a script and write‑up (example).
Cue the drama: another voice sighed in relief that gibr isn’t yet another “AI slapped on everything” project, calling that out as a sign of our industry’s current anxiety. Meanwhile, the minimalist camp declared the whole topic overblown: branches are temporary; what matters is the message you leave behind when you’re done. The jokes flowed—naming branches like naming babies vs. just scribbling a sticky note—while gibr’s promise of plug‑and‑play aliases kept the curious around. Verdict from the crowd? Handy tool, but the real fight is whether branch names even matter—and whether we let an AI pick them anyway.
Key Points
- •gibr is a CLI tool that integrates Git with issue trackers to create consistent, descriptive branch names.
- •It supports GitHub, GitLab, Jira, and Linear integrations, with Monday.com listed as coming soon.
- •Setup includes installing via uv pip or pip and running gibr init to generate a .gibrconfig for the chosen tracker.
- •Optional Git aliases can be added via gibr alias, with different flag ordering compared to the native CLI.
- •Branch naming is configurable via placeholders, with special handling for Jira project keys and a --verbose debug option.