Ghost

A git hosting platform

Self-hosted git. Push over HTTP, browse the code, open pull requests, review the diff, merge. Object storage holds the truth, local disk is a cache.

Screens

Repository listing. Directories first, last commit per row, branch switcher.

File view with syntax highlighting and a raw download.

Commit history for any branch.

Pull request list, filtered by state. Open count sits on the tab.

Pull request overview: markdown description, comments, live merge state. Author or anyone with write access can edit the title and description in place.

Split diff, computed from the merge base rather than the branch tips.

Features

• Push and pull over HTTP, authenticated with a personal access token
• Trees, blobs, raw files, branch switching, commit history
• Forks, stars, public and private repositories
• Pull requests across branches and across forks, with a real merge commit
• Comments with markdown, editable title and description
• Accounts, sessions, organizations, API keys (better-auth)

Not built yet: webhooks, issues, CI.

Stack

Layer	Choice
Web	Next.js 16, React 19, Tailwind, shadcn/ui
API	NestJS 12, OpenAPI client generated for the web
Database	Postgres, Drizzle
Storage	S3-compatible bucket (MinIO locally)
Runtime	Bun, Turborepo workspace

Running it

Needs Bun, Postgres, and an S3-compatible bucket.

bun install
cp .env.example .env   # set BETTER_AUTH_SECRET and the S3 credentials
bun run db:migrate
bun run dev

Web on http://localhost:3000, API on http://localhost:3001.

Push an existing repository. The password is a personal access token from account settings, not the login password.

git remote add origin http://localhost:3001/<username>/<repo>.git
git push -u origin main

Layout

apps/api      NestJS API and the git HTTP transport
apps/web      Next.js frontend
packages/db   Drizzle schema and migrations
docs/         Design decisions, one file each

Design decisions

docs/ covers why the transport takes streams instead of Request/Response, why a push is one compare-and-swap against a write-ahead log, why materialization is forward-only replay, and why a pull request spans two logs and lends objects instead of copying them. Each file lists what was rejected and what it costs.