reflect

Reflect

[!IMPORTANT] While this tool helps document your GitHub contributions, it’s crucial to remember that your impact and value to a company extends far beyond what’s visible in GitHub. Many critical aspects of software engineering - such as mentoring, documentation, cross-team collaboration, and technical leadership - often happen outside of version control. For more on this topic, check out Glue Work, an excellent resource about the often-overlooked but essential work that makes teams successful.

Quickstart 🚀

Prerequisites ⚙️

1. Install nodenv (preferred) or nvm
2. Install npm or yarn package manager
3. GitHub Personal Access Token (PAT) with repo and read:org scopes
4. OpenAI API key (optional, for summary and brag document generation)

Usage 💻

1. Set up your environment variables:

   cp .env{.example,}
   

2. Run the setup script to configure your environment:

   ./script/setup
   

3. Run the tool:

   ./reflect --username <github-username> --lookback <months-to-look-back> --brag
   

This will generate three markdown files in the output directory:

• A detailed list of your GitHub contributions
• A summarized version of your contributions
• A professional brag document highlighting your achievements

Features ✨

• 📥 Fetches merged pull requests and closed issues from GitHub
• 🔍 Filters by author and date range (last 6 months by default)
• 📝 Generates a clean, chronological markdown document
• 🔄 Combines both PRs and issues into a single reflection document
• ⚡ Uses GitHub’s official Octokit API client for efficient data retrieval
• 🤖 Optional AI-powered summary and brag document generation
• 🔒 Secure handling of API keys and sensitive data

Usage 🛠️

Run the tool:

./reflect --username <github-username> --lookback <months-to-look-back> [--brag]

Example:

./reflect --username bostonaholic --lookback 6 --brag

Arguments 📋

Required:

• -u, --username <username>: Your GitHub username to fetch activity for
• -l, --lookback <number>: Number of months to look back for activity (must be a positive number)

Optional:

• -p, --provider <provider>: LLM provider to use (e.g., openai, anthropic), defaults to openai
• -m, --model <model>: OpenAI model to use (e.g., gpt-4, gpt-3.5-turbo), defaults to gpt-4o
• -b, --brag: Optional flag to generate a summary and brag document
• -i, --include-orgs <orgs...>: Only include contributions from these organizations (mutually exclusive with –exclude-orgs)
• -e, --exclude-orgs <orgs...>: Exclude contributions from these organizations (mutually exclusive with –include-orgs)

Examples 🚀

Basic usage:

./reflect --username bostonaholic --lookback 6 --brag

Choose a model:

./reflect --username bostonaholic --lookback 6 --model gpt-3-5-turbo --brag

Choose an LLM provider and model

./reflect --username bostonaholic --lookback 6 --provider anthropic --model claude-3-7-sonnet-20250219 --brag

Filter by specific organizations:

./reflect --username bostonaholic --lookback 6 --include-orgs shopify github

Exclude specific organizations:

./reflect --username bostonaholic --lookback 6 --exclude-orgs secret archived

Environment Variables 🔐

Required environment variables:

• GITHUB_TOKEN: Your GitHub Personal Access Token (required)

To create a GitHub Personal Access Token:

1. Go to GitHub Settings > Developer Settings > Personal Access Tokens > Tokens (classic)
2. Generate a new token with the following scopes:
   • repo (Full control of private repositories)
   • read:org (Read organization data)
3. Copy the token and add it to your .env file

Required for making LLM calls (one of):

• OPENAI_API_KEY
• ANTHROPIC_API_KEY

Optional for using a different provider-compatible endpoint:

• OPENAI_BASE_URL
• ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL

Security Considerations 🔒

• API keys are only accepted through environment variables, not command-line arguments
• All file operations are sanitized to prevent path traversal attacks
• GitHub API rate limits are properly handled with informative error messages
• Input validation is performed on all user-provided parameters
• Output files are restricted to a predefined list of allowed filenames
• GitHub tokens are never logged or exposed in error messages

Output 📁

The script will generate one or more markdown files in the output directory:

output/contributions.md 📊

Contains:

• A chronological list of your merged pull requests and closed issues
• Each item includes:
  • Title
  • Closing date
  • Description/body
• Items are sorted by closing date (most recent first)
• Activity for the specified time period

output/summarized_contributions.md (with –brag flag) 📝

Contains:

• A technical summary of your contributions
• Groups similar contributions together
• Highlights key technical changes and improvements
• Identifies patterns in the work
• Notes significant architectural changes

output/brag_document.md (with –brag flag) 🎯

Contains:

• A professional brag document highlighting your achievements
• Focuses on business impact and value
• Emphasizes collaboration and leadership
• Highlights key metrics and improvements
• Suitable for performance reviews or portfolio

Note: The output directory and all generated files are automatically git-ignored to prevent accidental commits.

Troubleshooting 🔍

1. If you get TypeScript errors, ensure you’re using Node.js v22 or higher:

node --version

1. If you get GitHub API errors:
   • Verify your GitHub Personal Access Token (PAT) is correctly set in your .env file
   • Check that your PAT has the required scopes (repo and read:org)
   • Ensure your PAT hasn’t expired (they can be set to expire after a certain time)
   • Verify you have access to the repositories you’re trying to fetch data from
2. If the script runs but generates an empty file:
   • Check that you have activity in the specified time period
   • Verify your GitHub username is correct
   • Ensure you have the necessary permissions to access the repositories
3. If you get an error about the OpenAI API key:
   • Make sure you’ve set it in your .env file
   • Check that the API key is valid and has sufficient credits
   • Verify the .env file is in the correct location
4. If you get environment variable errors:
   • Ensure your .env file exists and is properly formatted
   • Check that there are no spaces around the = sign in your .env file
   • Verify the .env file is in the root directory of the project

Links 🔗

• 🗞️ Hacker News
• 🐦 X
• 💼 LinkedIn

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