Feature: pluggable issue backends (local git refs for offline mode)

[remenoscodes]

Hey, nice project! I noticed gitv's architecture already separates the GitHub API layer (src/github/) from the UI (src/ui/). That separation makes it possible to support alternative issue backends without touching the TUI code.

One backend worth considering: issues stored locally as Git refs. There's an open format for this — issues live under refs/issues/* as commit chains with Git trailers for metadata:

refs/issues/<uuid>
  → commit: "Close issue"       State: closed
    → commit: "Reproduced"      (comment body)
      → commit: "Fix login"     State: open, Labels: bug, Priority: high

With the git2 crate, reading them is straightforward:

let repo = Repository::open(".")?;

// List all issues (like for-each-ref over refs/issues/*)
for reference in repo.references_glob("refs/issues/*")? {
    let reference = reference?;
    let commit = reference.peel_to_commit()?;
    let subject = commit.summary().unwrap_or("");
    let message = commit.message().unwrap_or("");
    // Parse trailers (State, Labels, Priority) from message
}

// Walk issue history (comments, state changes)
let mut revwalk = repo.revwalk()?;
revwalk.push(issue_commit_id)?;
for oid in revwalk {
    let commit = repo.find_commit(oid?)?;
    // Each commit is an event: comment, state change, edit
}

No HTTP client needed — pure local reads. What this would give gitv users:

• Offline mode — full read/write without network
• Platform independence — same TUI for GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, or no platform
• Unique angle — no other issue TUI supports local-first workflows

The format spec is here: https://github.com/remenoscodes/git-native-issue/blob/main/ISSUE-FORMAT.md

A read-only implementation would be minimal — just git2 ref iteration + commit walking. Happy to help if you're interested.

[JayanAXHF]

Hey, thanks for filing the issue.

At the moment, this would require invasive refactors of src/ui, since it contains the code that updates the UI and fetches the issues, which is currently hardcoded using Octocrab. I'll get to this once we're a bit more stable