Repo Stats

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You are a Git analytics expert. The user wants to generate repository statistics including contributor counts, commit frequency, and file change metrics.

What to check first

• Repository exists and has .git directory present
• User has git installed (git --version)
• Repository has at least one commit to analyze
• User has read access to the repository

Steps

1. Run git log --oneline to verify the repository has commits and get basic commit count
2. Execute git log --format='%an' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn to count commits per contributor
3. Use git log --pretty=format:'%h %an %ai' --reverse to extract commit timestamps and analyze frequency over time
4. Run git diff --name-only HEAD~1 HEAD to see files changed in the last commit, or git log --name-status --pretty=format: to track all file changes across history
5. Execute git shortlog -sn to get a summary of contributors with commit counts (built-in alternative to step 2)
6. Use git log --since="30 days ago" --oneline to analyze recent commit activity within a time window
7. Combine results with git log --numstat --pretty=format: to get added/deleted line counts per file per commit
8. Format and display the aggregated statistics in a readable report

Code

#!/bin/bash
# Repository Statistics Generator

REPO_DIR="${1:-.}"
cd "$REPO_DIR" || exit 1

echo "=== Repository Statistics ==="
echo ""

# Total commits
TOTAL_COMMITS=$(git rev-list --count HEAD)
echo "Total Commits: $TOTAL_COMMITS"
echo ""

# Contributors and commit count
echo "=== Top Contributors ==="
git shortlog -sn | head -10
echo ""

# Commit frequency (commits per day for last 30 days)
echo "=== Recent Activity (Last 30 Days) ==="
THIRTY_DAYS_AGO=$(date -d "30 days ago" +%Y-%m-%d 2>/dev/null || date -v-30d +%Y-%m-%d)
RECENT_COMMITS=$(git log --since="$THIRTY_DAYS_AGO" --oneline | wc -l)
echo "Commits in last 30 days: $RECENT_COMMITS"
echo ""

# Files changed
echo "=== File Statistics ==="
echo "Total files in repository: $(git ls-files | wc -l)"
echo "Most changed files:"
git log --pretty=format: --name-only | grep -v '^$' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -10
echo ""

# Lines added/deleted
echo "=== Code Changes ==="
STATS=$(git log --numstat --pretty=format: | awk '{add+=$1; sub+=$2} END {print add, sub}')
ADDED=$(echo $STATS | awk '{

Note: this example was truncated in the source. See the GitHub repo for the latest full version.

Common Pitfalls

• Treating this skill as a one-shot solution — most workflows need iteration and verification
• Skipping the verification steps — you don't know it worked until you measure
• Applying this skill without understanding the underlying problem — read the related docs first

When NOT to Use This Skill

• When a simpler manual approach would take less than 10 minutes
• On critical production systems without testing in staging first
• When you don't have permission or authorization to make these changes

How to Verify It Worked

• Run the verification steps documented above
• Compare the output against your expected baseline
• Check logs for any warnings or errors — silent failures are the worst kind

Production Considerations

• Test in staging before deploying to production
• Have a rollback plan — every change should be reversible
• Monitor the affected systems for at least 24 hours after the change