November 2023 Summaries

The article discusses the integration of GitLab, a version control tool, with Microsoft Teams, a widely-used platform for team communication. It highlights that there is currently no official integration between these two platforms and presents Axolo as a solution to address this gap. Axolo provides a fully integrated GitLab Microsoft Teams app, offering features such as direct integration with GitLab, automated notifications, threaded discussions, code review management, and customizable notifications. The benefits of using Axolo include enhanced collaboration, streamlined workflows, improved efficiency, better project management, and increased transparency. The article concludes by recommending teams to consider Axolo for their GitLab Microsoft Teams integration needs.

Stacked Pull Requests (PRs) are a development workflow strategy where multiple smaller PRs are opened in a specific sequence, each one building upon the previous. This approach allows for easier code review as each PR contains a manageable chunk of changes, making it simpler for reviewers to understand the context and impact. Stacked PRs are particularly useful in larger projects where a single PR could become overwhelming to review. Managing Stacked PRs can be made more efficient with specialized tools like ghstack, Git Town, Sapling, spr, and Graphite. By incorporating Stacked PRs and these tools into your development process, you can significantly improve code quality, reduce review time, and ultimately, deliver better software.

In September/October 2023, Axolo introduced several updates and improvements. They enabled engineers to request admin access on the billing page after reaching the starter plan limit, updated transactional emails to Customer.io, improved Slack toast notifications for failed tests, and personalized stand-up notifications. Additionally, they changed their free plan from seat-based pricing to usage-based up to 50 PR per month and added enhanced security for their admin panel. They also fixed a bug where the email welcoming new users was not sent.

In September/October 2023, Axolo introduced several updates and improvements. They enabled engineers to request admin access on the billing page after reaching the starter plan limit. Some transactional emails were updated to Customer.io, and better Slack toast notifications for failed tests were implemented. The stand-up notification was updated with personalization options. Axolo's free plan transitioned from seat-based pricing to usage-based pricing up to 50 PR per month. Additionally, they added enhanced security for their admin panel and offered subgroup onboarding possibility for users without ownership on main GitLab groups. They also improved handling of wrong workspace login, enhanced security for their API using VPN filtered routes, and updated standup and /axolo command notification with PR where someone from the team is a reviewer. Lastly, they fixed a bug where the email welcoming new users was not sent.