Keep your board honest with git
Boards drift out of date because updating them is a chore. Let the work itself move the cards.
Engineering · October 5, 2026 · 5 min read
The most common complaint about task boards is that they lie. A card says “In progress” while the pull request merged two days ago. Nobody is to blame; updating a board is simply one more step after the real work is done.
Put the task key in the branch
The trick is a convention that costs nothing: include the task key in the branch name, commit message or pull request title. TrackSpaceNow suggests a branch name for every task from a pattern you control, so the convention is a copy-paste away.
Let events move the card
- A new branch moves the task into progress
- An opened pull request moves it into review
- A merged pull request moves it to done
Automation never moves a card backwards, so a late event cannot drag a finished task out of Done. You can still drag cards by hand whenever the real situation is more nuanced than the rules.
Keep the story attached
Every branch, commit and pull request is also recorded in the task’s activity. When someone asks months later why a change was made, the answer is one click from the card, together with the discussion that led to it.