---
title: "Product Brief: GitPulse"
status: "complete"
created: "2025-04-25"
updated: "2025-04-25"
inputs:
  - "market-git-dashboard-ia-research-2026-04-24.md"
  - "recherche_comportement_developpeurs.md"
  - "recherche-points-de-douleur-developpeurs.md"
---

# Product Brief: GitPulse

## Executive Summary

**GitPulse** is the open source command center for multi-repo governance — a local-first desktop dashboard that automatically discovers every Git repository on a developer's machine and presents them in a single, AI-enhanced view.

Developers managing five or more repositories lose significant time each month to "workflow chaos": forgotten pushes, stale branches, undetected conflicts, and the cognitive overhead of tracking project state across directories. Current solutions fail comprehensively: GitKraken requires Electron (500 MB+ RAM), mandatory login, and paywalls private repos. GitButler ($17M raised) is single-repo by design. lazygit and gita offer no visual dashboard. **No open source tool combines automatic disk scanning, a visual multi-repo dashboard, batch git operations, and AI-powered insights in a performant, zero-configuration package.**

GitPulse occupies this gap. Built on Tauri v2 with a Rust backend and React frontend, it delivers native performance (~15 MB binary, <200 MB RAM) with zero configuration: launch it once and every repository appears. The AI layer is **model-agnostic**: users bring their own intelligence — Ollama for fully local, private analysis, or cloud APIs (Gemini, DeepSeek, OpenAI, Anthropic) for more powerful reasoning. **Your code, your rules.** Privacy is the default; cloud is the opt-in.

Positioned as developer infrastructure (not just a tool), GitPulse targets indie developers, freelances, and power users. It is the "mission control" complementary to AI-powered IDEs — where Cursor writes your code, GitPulse watches your codebase.

## The Problem

A developer sits down Monday morning. She has 23 Git repositories scattered across her disk: client projects, side experiments, open source contributions, internal microservices, and configuration repos. Three have uncommitted changes she forgot about on Friday. Two are behind their remote by a dozen commits. One has a merge conflict she hasn't noticed. Another has branches that haven't been touched in six months.

To discover any of this, she must open a terminal, `cd` into each directory, and run `git status`. Twenty-three times. Every day.

> "I work across many local git repositories and I often lose track of which ones are dirty, ahead/behind, or where I last made changes. Checking each repo with git status became a daily time sink."
> — Git-Scope author, Hacker News (December 2025)

This is not a minor inconvenience. It is a daily, quantifiable time loss that scales linearly with the number of repositories a developer manages.

**How developers cope today — and why it fails:**

- **Shell scripts**: Fragile, unshared, unable to handle edge cases. Most developers write one, use it for a week, then abandon it.
- **GitKraken Workspaces**: The only commercial multi-repo dashboard, but built on Electron (500 MB+ RAM, 3.1/5 user rating), requires mandatory login even for local repos, and locks private repositories behind a paywall since v6.0.
- **GitButler**: Raised $17M, ships on Tauri/Rust (great performance), but single-repo focused, Fair Source licensed (not truly open source), and still in beta with 291 open issues.
- **gita / mu-repo**: CLI batch tools requiring manual repository registration, no visual dashboard, inconsistent Windows support.
- **lazygit / gitui**: Excellent single-repo TUIs, fundamentally one-repo-at-a-time.
- **VS Code Workspaces**: Basic multi-repo awareness, no unified dashboard, no batch operations, no AI insights.

## The Solution

GitPulse is developer infrastructure that works in three layers:

### 1. Instant Discovery

On first launch, GitPulse recursively scans configured directories for `.git` folders. Results appear in seconds. No setup wizard, no login, no configuration file. Just launch and see everything.

**Privacy-respecting by design:** Users control which directories are scanned. An `.gitpulseignore` file (like `.gitignore`) lets developers exclude sensitive client projects, tutorial clones, or any directory from discovery.

### 2. Visual Command Center

Two complementary views:

- **Card Grid** — compact tiles showing each repository's branch, status (clean/dirty/ahead/behind), last commit time, and stash count. Designed for instant pattern recognition across 5 to 100+ repos.
- **List View** — sortable, selectable rows for batch operations: select 15 stale repos and `git pull` them all at once. Filter by status, group by project, tag by context (work, personal, client).

### 3. Smart Status — Model-Agnostic AI

GitPulse provides AI-powered intelligence through a pluggable model backend. The user chooses their engine:

| Mode | Provider | Privacy | Cost | Best For |
|------|----------|---------|------|----------|
| **Local** | Ollama | Full — nothing leaves the machine | Free | Commit messages, health summaries |
| **Cloud** | Gemini, DeepSeek, OpenAI, Anthropic | Data transits to provider API | Pay-per-use (user's own API key) | Cross-repo analysis, impact assessment |
| **Hybrid** | Mix and match | Per-task control | Optimized | Best of both worlds |

**Smart Status capabilities:**

- One-line repository health summaries: *"3 uncommitted changes, 12 commits behind origin/main, last activity 2 weeks ago"*
- Commit message suggestions based on staged changes
- Dormancy alerts for repos inactive beyond a configurable threshold
- Cross-repo impact analysis (cloud models): *"This shared library was updated in 3 repos — 2 may need version bumps"*

**Privacy multi-level indicator:** When a cloud model is active, a clear visual badge in the UI signals that data will transit externally. Local mode (Ollama) always shows "Your code never leaves your machine." The user stays in control at all times.

**Cost-optimized routing:** A smart selector allows per-task model assignment — Ollama for routine commit messages (free), DeepSeek or Gemini for complex cross-repo analysis (user's API key). The user configures the intelligence; GitPulse provides the plumbing.

**No AI? No problem.** If no model is configured, GitPulse works perfectly with deterministic status parsing. Smart Status is a progressive enhancement, never a dependency.

### 4. Always-on Awareness

GitPulse runs a system tray agent that monitors for remote changes and push reminders. A subtle notification appears when a repository falls behind its remote or has uncommitted changes older than a threshold. The developer doesn't need to open the dashboard to stay informed.

## What Makes This Different

| | GitPulse | GitKraken | GitButler | lazygit | gita |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Auto disk scan | Yes | No | No | No | Partial |
| Multi-repo dashboard | Yes | Yes (paid) | No | No | No |
| Batch operations | Yes | Limited | No | No | Yes |
| AI — model agnostic | **Ollama + 4 cloud APIs** | Gemini (cloud only) | Claude (cloud only) | No | No |
| AI — local option | **Yes (Ollama)** | No | No | No | No |
| Open source | **MIT/Apache** | No | Fair Source | GPL-3 | Apache 2.0 |
| Private repos free | **Yes** | **No** (paywall) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Login required | **No** | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Privacy indicator | **Yes** | No | No | N/A | N/A |
| Tech stack | Tauri/Rust | Electron | Tauri/Rust | Go | Python |
| Binary size (target) | ~15 MB | ~200 MB | ~15 MB | ~10 MB | ~1 MB |
| RAM usage (target) | <200 MB | 500 MB–1 GB | 80–150 MB | <50 MB | <20 MB |

**Unfair advantages:**

1. **First mover in the open multi-repo quadrant.** No tool occupies the intersection of auto-discovery + multi-repo dashboard + batch ops + model-agnostic AI + truly open source (MIT/Apache).

2. **Model-agnostic AI plumbing.** GitKraken locks users to Gemini. GitButler to Claude. GitPulse lets developers bring their own intelligence — Ollama for privacy, DeepSeek for cost-performance, Gemini for reasoning, Anthropic for quality. This is infrastructure, not a walled garden.

3. **Structural performance moat.** Tauri + Rust produces binaries 10–15x smaller and 3–5x less memory-hungry than Electron competitors. This is architectural — competitors would need to rebuild from scratch.

4. **Trust through licensing.** MIT/Apache vs GitButler's Fair Source (cannot build competitors, not OSI-approved). Developers can fork, build commercial tools on top, and trust it won't be re-licensed. Genuine adoption accelerator.

5. **Complementary to AI IDEs.** Cursor, Copilot, and Windsurf solve intra-repo productivity. GitPulse solves inter-repo visibility. Developers use both. No "us vs. the giants" positioning trap.

**Why now:**

- Tauri v2 production-stable (90k+ GitHub stars). Framework risk eliminated.
- Ollama on millions of developer machines (100k+ stars, stable API). Local AI infrastructure ready.
- GitHub Copilot data policy change (April 2025): interactions used for training by default. Privacy momentum accelerating.
- DeepSeek's rise creates demand for tools that support diverse model backends — not just the one vendor's cloud.
- GitButler's $17M validates git tooling market but confirms single-repo focus. Window is open.

## Who This Serves

**Primary: The Indie Dev Poly-Project**

A freelance or solo developer juggling 10–50+ projects across clients, open source, and personal experiments. They context-switch daily between repositories and lose track of state. Their pain is constant and immediate.

*Success looks like:* Monday morning, launch GitPulse, instantly see 3 repos need attention, handle them in 30 seconds instead of 20 minutes.

**Secondary: The Power User / Tech Lead**

A senior developer managing a microservices architecture across multiple repositories. They need batch operations, cross-repo visibility, and team-level awareness. They already use CLI tools but crave a visual overview and are willing to configure cloud APIs for advanced analysis.

*Success looks like:* Batch-pulling 12 microservice repos, then seeing the Smart Status summary confirm all are clean — with cross-repo dependency analysis powered by their preferred cloud model.

**Tertiary: The Maker / Side-Project Builder**

A creative developer with dozens of side projects, prototypes, and experiments. Many repos are dormant. They need to discover which projects are still alive, which are stale, and which have changes they forgot to push.

*Success looks like:* GitPulse flagging 8 repos dormant for 3+ months and 2 with uncommitted changes from weeks ago — a cleanup session they'd never have initiated manually.

## Success Criteria

**Month 3 (post-launch):**

| Metric | Target |
|--------|--------|
| GitHub stars | 500+ |
| Monthly active users | 500+ |
| Cumulative downloads | 2,000+ |
| Hacker News Show HN score | 200+ upvotes |

**Month 6:**

| Metric | Target |
|--------|--------|
| GitHub stars | 2,000+ |
| Monthly active users | 2,000+ |
| Paying subscribers (cloud tier) | 50 |
| D30 retention | 40%+ |

**Month 12:**

| Metric | Target |
|--------|--------|
| GitHub stars | 5,000+ |
| Monthly active users | 10,000+ |
| Paying subscribers | 200 |
| MRR | $1,500+ |
| D30 retention | 50%+ |

**User success signals:**

- Average repos scanned per user > 10 (validates multi-repo need)
- Batch operations used within first session (validates batch value)
- Smart Status consulted > 3 times per session (validates AI value)
- System tray notifications acted upon within 24 hours (validates passive monitoring)
- At least 2 AI backends configured per active user (validates model-agnostic value)

## Scope

**In — MVP (Day 1 launch):**

- Automatic recursive disk scan for Git repositories with `.gitpulseignore` support
- Card grid view: branch, status, ahead/behind, last commit, stash count
- List view: sortable, filterable, selectable for batch operations
- Batch operations: pull, push, fetch, status across selected repos (with per-repo error reporting)
- System tray agent: remote change alerts, push reminders
- Smart Status with model-agnostic AI backend:
  - Ollama integration (local, default)
  - Cloud API support: Gemini, DeepSeek, OpenAI, Anthropic (user's own keys)
  - Privacy indicator: visual badge showing local vs cloud mode
  - One-line repo summaries, commit message suggestions, dormancy alerts
- Zero-config, zero-login, single binary distribution
- Cross-platform: Windows, macOS, Linux
- English UI with i18n framework ready
- MIT/Apache open source license

**Explicitly Out — MVP:**

- Cloud sync or team collaboration features
- Built-in code editor or diff viewer
- Merge conflict resolution UI
- CI/CD integration or pipeline dashboards
- Integration with GitHub/GitLab APIs (issues, PRs, CI status)
- Mobile companion app
- Enterprise features (SSO, compliance, audit logs)
- Telemetry (opt-in anonymous usage stats only, with clear disclosure)

**Planned — Phase 2 (months 4–6):**

- Repository grouping, tagging, and workspace contexts
- Advanced Smart Status: cross-repo dependency detection, activity patterns
- Git worktree integration in the dashboard
- File watcher for real-time status updates
- CLI companion tool (`gitpulse-cli`) for terminal-first workflows
- Premium cloud tier: multi-machine sync, team analytics

**Planned — Phase 3 (months 7–12):**

- Inter-repository dependency graph visualization
- MCP (Model Context Protocol) support for extensibility
- Autonomous AI agents for code review and anomaly detection
- GitHub/GitLab integration (PRs, issues, CI status)
- Enterprise tier: SSO, compliance, fleet analytics

## Competitive Dynamics

**GitButler** ($17M raised, Tauri/Rust, Fair Source) is the most credible fast-follower. Issue #5825 (multi-repo) is open but not prioritized — their focus is virtual branches and agentic workflows. **Mitigation:** Ship first, build community traction, and differentiate on model-agnostic AI. GitButler's Fair Source license is a permanent friction point for the OSS community.

**GitKraken** (Electron, proprietary) could improve Workspaces performance, but rebuilding on a native framework would be a multi-year effort. **Mitigation:** The structural performance gap is uncloseable without an Electron migration — a decision they're unlikely to make given their codebase investment.

**Hive** (hive-ai.dev, appeared April 2026) is the earliest direct competitor to monitor. Multi-repo workspace with agent SDK. **Mitigation:** GitPulse's open source licensing, model-agnostic approach, and local-first architecture are fundamentally different value propositions.

**AI IDEs** (Cursor, Copilot, Windsurf) are architecturally mono-repo. Adding a multi-repo dashboard view is not imminent. **Mitigation:** GitPulse is complementary, not competitive. Coexistence is the strategy.

## Vision

**In 2–3 years, GitPulse becomes the open source standard for multi-repo governance** — the infrastructure every developer installs alongside their IDE and terminal.

Where GitButler owns individual branch workflows and AI-powered IDEs own code generation, GitPulse owns the macro view: the health, synchronization, and coordination of every repository a developer or team touches.

The business model evolves from indie project to structured **Open Core** company:

- **Community tier** (free, MIT/Apache): All local features, unlimited repos, full model-agnostic AI capabilities, zero restrictions. Growth engine — every user is a potential advocate and contributor.
- **Cloud tier** (paid): Multi-machine sync, team analytics, SaaS integrations (Jira, Linear, Slack), fleet-level repository monitoring. Revenue without compromising the local-first promise.
- **Enterprise tier** (paid): SSO, compliance dashboards, audit trails, on-premise deployment. The segment where GitKraken operates with high dissatisfaction.

**Fundraising trigger:** Seed round ($1–2M) if GitPulse reaches 5,000 MAU and 3% free-to-cloud conversion by month 9. Funds accelerate enterprise integrations and team hiring while preserving the open source core. The community product stays free forever; the company monetizes coordination, visibility, and compliance at scale.

GitPulse is not a feature. It is the category-defining infrastructure for a problem 100 million developers have but no one has solved properly — yet.
