Add GitLab as a sync backend

[chasecaleb]

I'm willing to implement this myself, I just want to make sure that there is interest in merging this feature before I spend the time implementing it.

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
As a user who stores his org files in Gitlab, I would like to be able to access these org files from organice as well.

Describe the solution you'd like
Add Gitlab as a sync backend using their API. Of note:

• Supports OAuth 2.0. I'm planning on using the PKCE flow with oauth2-auth-code-pkce for the client, but open to alternatives.
• CORS isn't an issue for the API (allows all origins)
• API call: get list of files
• API call: get raw file contents
• API call: update existing file

Describe alternatives you've considered

• Filesystem access: not widely supported by browsers at this point, and only solves half the problem since it would require the user to deal with Git operations out of band.
• Embedding a web-based git client: haven't really looked into this but that sounds like a bad idea, if even possible.

Additional context
I use https://github.com/simonthum/git-sync to sync between my computers, so same use case but different scenario. That's a bash script that uses git, whereas I'm suggesting using Gitlab API calls. Anyways, point is that the general concept of using a git repo to automatically sync org files works well so I'm confident that it will be useful here too.

Interested?

[schoettl]

Nice, I'm looking forward to that sync backend!

Note that there are a few Gitlab API clients: https://www.npmjs.com/search?q=gitlab%20client

But if you only need this 3 API calls, it's maybe better to implement it yourself instead adding a dependency (which partly don't even work with Promises).

Generic git support would be nice but considering the complicated git repo data structures that would all be needed in local storage, disqualifies that alternative for me, too.

[munen]

Hi @chasecaleb

Using git as a back-end is certainly interesting. It has been requested multiple times in the suppor channels and also as GH issue (#484, #279).

I'm a Gitlab user, myself. If you're going for Gitlab integration, I'd personally also access the REST API directly. We have recently moved off a selfmanaged gitlab instance to gitlab.com and it proved way easier to write code directly against the API. All libraries I tried (JS, Ruby and Python) had some caveats. However, the REST API was very clean and easy to use.

The APIs you have described seem very reasonable to implement and correlates well to how organice works (simple push/pull workflow). For reference, I'll say that others have mentioned https://isomorphic-git.org/ as a good way to integrate git into organice. However, I have personally never followed up on this.

To get you started, here's a good place to start: Synchronization is build using the strategy pattern which is consumed here[1]. Implementing a new backend is as easy as implementing 8 functions[2]. For Dropbox it's about 120 LOC JavaScript.

I'll happily merge a PR enabling Gitlab as a back-end. Of course I'll also give support during development by answering questions and will help testing.

Good luck and enjoy 🙏

1. https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice/blob/master/src/actions/sync_backend.js
2. https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice/blob/master/src/sync_backend_clients/dropbox_sync_backend_client.js#L159-L167

[chasecaleb]

Thanks for the quick responses and info!

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But if you only need this 3 API calls, it's maybe better to implement it yourself instead adding a dependency (which partly don't even work with Promises).

Yeah, exactly. I'm planning on using browser fetch(..) because this is pretty simple.

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https://isomorphic-git.org/

Hmm, fascinating. I'm going to keep that in my back pocket in case I ever come across another need for it, but unfortunately both GitHub and GitLab have understandably restrictive CORS settings for Git endpoints (as opposed to regular API endpoints) so it's a non-starter in this app. References:

1. https://github.com/isomorphic-git/isomorphic-git#cors-support
2. https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-workhorse/-/merge_requests/219
3. https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/20590

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By the way, what is your browser compatibility policy? Particularly, do you care about IE or pre-Chromium Edge? I'm guessing not based on a quick skim through your code but want to verify. I don't see it written down anywhere, but I might have missed it.

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I'll be back in the next week or two with at least the beginning of an implementation in the form of a draft PR.

[munen]

Re CORS settings for Github and Gitlab: Those make sense indeed. I'll keep your links in the back pocket in case the next person requests "native git" support(; Thank you for checking out the potential opportunity 🙏

By the way, what is your browser compatibility policy?

There is no explicitly written down policy at the moment. The implicit policy that we have used so far is: Make organice run on current iOS, Android as well as Firefox and Chromium on the Desktop. Fixing regressions for browser/mobile OS upgrades supercedes the need for supporting legacy browsers. The current maintainers all run current browsers.

If, at some point, a maintainer comes along who is interested in keeping support for legacy browsers, there's room for that. Until then, legacy support is not an explicitly important issue.

I'll be back in the next week or two with at least the beginning of an implementation in the form of a draft PR.

I'm looking forward to it! Have a good time and speak soon.

[munen]

Closed by #734