Graphite

Graphite is a comprehensive developer platform designed for the modern era of software engineering, particularly for teams using GitHub. It addresses common bottlenecks in the development lifecycle, such as waiting for code reviews and managing complex pull requests (PRs). By introducing a workflow centered around "stacked PRs," Graphite allows developers to break down large features into a series of small, dependent, and easily reviewable changes. This approach, combined with a suite of powerful tools including an AI code assistant, a unified PR inbox, and an automated merge queue, empowers teams to increase their development velocity, improve code quality, and enhance collaboration. Trusted by over 45,000 developers at leading tech companies like Asana, Ramp, and Tecton, Graphite is built to help engineering organizations ship more code with smaller PRs and faster review cycles.

How to use Graphite

1. Installation & Setup: Begin by installing the Graphite CLI and/or the VS Code extension. Authenticate your account with GitHub to sync your repositories.
2. Create Stacked PRs: Instead of a single large PR, use the Graphite CLI (gt) to create a stack of smaller, dependent branches. Start a stack with gt create. Continue building on top of it by running gt create again for subsequent changes. This keeps you unblocked, as you don't have to wait for the first PR to be merged.
3. Submit for Review: Once your stack is ready, run gt submit to create corresponding pull requests on GitHub for every branch in your stack.
4. Manage Reviews: Use the Graphite PR Inbox, a unified dashboard, to track all your PRs, review requests, CI statuses, and comments in one place. The inbox is highly customizable to match your personal workflow.
5. Leverage AI Assistance: Graphite's AI, "Diamond," automatically reviews your PRs. It provides instant, actionable feedback on bugs, logical errors, and style inconsistencies, often with code suggestions. It can also generate detailed PR descriptions with a single click and summarize CI failures.
6. Merge with Confidence: Utilize the Graphite Merge Queue to automate the merging process. It handles dependencies within stacks, runs CI checks efficiently, and merges your code into the main branch without conflicts, ensuring it always stays green.

Core Features of Graphite

• Stacked PRs: Create, manage, and visualize stacks of dependent pull requests, enabling parallel development and faster, more focused reviews.
• AI Code Review (Diamond): A codebase-aware AI assistant that automatically scans PRs for issues, suggests fixes, generates PR descriptions, and helps enforce custom coding patterns.
• Unified PR Inbox: A central hub to manage all code review activities. See review status, CI results, and stack information in a real-time, customizable interface.
• Graphite Merge Queue: An automated system that eliminates merge conflicts and keeps the main branch stable. It supports batching and parallel CI runs to save time and resources.
• Developer Insights: Provides actionable, real-time metrics on team performance, including cycle time, PR size, and review speed, to help identify and resolve workflow bottlenecks.
• Graphite CLI & VS Code Extension: Powerful command-line and editor integrations that make stacking and managing Git workflows seamless and intuitive.
• CI/CD Optimizations: Intelligently skips redundant CI runs on stacked PRs, significantly reducing wait times and computational costs.
• Seamless GitHub Integration: Works on top of Git and syncs bidirectionally with GitHub, ensuring your team is always on the same page without leaving the ecosystem they know.

Use Cases for Graphite

Accelerating Feature Development: Teams at companies like Ramp use Graphite to break large features into stacked PRs, allowing for parallel review and integration, which has helped them ship code 3x faster.
Reducing Developer Downtime: Engineers at Asana save an average of 7 hours per week by using stacking to avoid being blocked by pending reviews. They can immediately start on the next piece of work while the previous one is being reviewed.
Improving Code Quality and Reviewer Focus: The Diamond AI automatically catches common errors and bugs, freeing up human reviewers to focus on higher-level architectural and logical feedback.
Streamlining Large Team Workflows: Organizations with hundreds of engineers use the Merge Queue to maintain a stable main branch despite a high volume of merges, preventing CI failures and merge conflicts.

Advantages of Graphite

Ship Faster: The core philosophy of stacking and efficient reviews directly translates to a faster development cycle.
Stay Unblocked: Developers can continue coding without waiting for approvals, drastically improving individual productivity.
Higher Quality Reviews: Smaller, focused PRs are easier and faster to review thoroughly. The AI assistant handles the routine checks, allowing human reviewers to provide more meaningful feedback.
Stable Main Branch: The intelligent Merge Queue prevents broken builds and merge conflicts, ensuring the main branch is always deployable.
Data-Driven Improvement: Engineering leaders get clear visibility into their team's workflow and can make informed decisions to optimize processes.

Pricing and Plans

Starter Plan: Free for individuals, open-source projects, and teams with 10 or fewer GitHub collaborators. Includes a simplified PR inbox, unified review page, and support for public and private repos.
Standard Plan: $25 per seat/month (billed annually, minimum 3 seats). Includes all Starter features plus AI-powered PR page, stacking, customizable inbox, integrations (Slack, Linear), merge queue, and insights.
Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing for large organizations. Offers advanced security features like SAML and audit logs, GitHub Enterprise Server support, dedicated support SLAs, and custom legal terms.
Add-ons:
- Diamond (AI Code Review): $15 per active committer/month with a Standard/Enterprise plan, or $20/month standalone.
- Reports: $15 per active committer/month (requires a Graphite seat).