Netflix open-sources a Slack bot that helps devs manage GitHub repos

Netflix announced today the release of HubCommander, an open source Slack bot to track and manage GitHub organizations and repositories.

Netflix is the second large company to launch a Slack bot today. Earlier in the day, PayPal released its Slack bot for peer-to-peer payments.

The entertainment service’s bot can be used privately for companies’ internal project management or publicly for open source projects on GitHub. News of the new bot was announced in a post on Netflix Tech Blog, a blog devoted to sharing more information about the software Netflix uses.

A GitHub organization includes one or multiple code repositories that people can collaborate on. Netflix’s organizations include one for primary operations and Netflix-Skunkworks for experiments and projects in the making.

HubCommander can create or modify GitHub repositories, list GitHub organizations, and display other actions available by typing shortcode !help.

“One of the biggest challenges with using GitHub organizations is user management. GitHub organizations are individual entities that must be separately administered. As such, the complexity of user management increases with the number of organizations,” Netflix’s Mike Grima, Andrew Spyker, and Jason Chan wrote.

At Netflix, HubCommander’s use has led to a reduction in the need for oversight of open source or internal projects.

The bot and install instructions are available on GitHub.

HubCommander comes in addition to a GitHub-Slack integration that allows users to post commits, pull requests, and monitor activity of a repository.