Updating jira tickets based on git commits

Traceability is one of the key tenets for accountability.  One of the easiest scripts I've had to write helps me to manage what my testing scope is going to be from release to release.

This script that I'm going to share has been helpful in getting a clear picture of what is potentially in the next set of code for testing.

Assumptions:

• There is a release branch to compare against the current release candidate in git
• Use or plan to use labels in JIRA as an identifier to manage stories
• JIRA Issue numbers are part of the commit message

Here's the workflow that I've devised (first version):

1. Compare the log differences between the last release branch and the current release candidate
2. Extract all the JIRA issue numbers from the result of number 1
3. Process and update the stories with a given label

​Comparing Git Logs

To get log of the current branch, simply type:

git log

Assuming, that you have the latest commits, it is easy to compare the logs of two files by running this command and placing the results into a file.

git log {production}..{release_candidate} > new_code.txt

The one thing it doesn't do very well, is if you had to do a hotfix in production after the fact.  It is still okay, as it will remind the tester to test that "critical" hotfix to insure that we didn't break it again.

Once you have the file, it is a matter of parsing the file and updating the JIRA tickets with the appropirate label.

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