OTTO: How We Brought Order to Chaos in Our Group Project Using AI-Powered Git Workflows

Group projects don’t fail because of lack of talent.
They fail because of poor coordination, messy version control, and unclear ownership of work.

During our Software Development Group Project (SDGP), our team quickly realized that Git itself wasn’t the problem, how humans use Git was.

So we built OTTO.

The Problem We Faced as a Team

Like most student (and even professional) teams, we ran into familiar issues:

Inconsistent commit messages
No clear visibility of who did what
Painful merge conflicts
Developers forgetting to stash changes before switching branches
Manual, error-prone versioning during releases

These problems didn’t just slow us down, they broke trust in the codebase.

We needed a system that:

Enforced discipline without slowing developers
Made Git history human-readable
Reduced conflicts instead of reacting to them

Our Solution: OTTO

OTTO is an AI-assisted Git workflow companion designed to bring clarity, consistency, and confidence to team-based development.

Instead of relying on everyone to “remember best practices”, OTTO guides and automates them.

What OTTO Does (And Why It Matters)

1. Conventional Commits - Made Understandable with AI

OTTO enforces Conventional Commits, but with a twist.

Developers write commits in natural language
OTTO converts them into clear, structured, conventional commits
Commit history becomes readable by humans and machines

Example: feat(auth): add JWT-based authentication middleware

Why this matters:

Clean changelogs
Easier debugging
Smarter releases

2. Crystal-Clear Commit History Per Contributor

Every commit tells a story:

What was done
Why it was done
Who did it

OTTO ensures:

No vague messages like fix, update, or final_final
Proper attribution of work
Transparent contribution tracking for group projects

This was especially important for academic evaluation and fairness.

3. Automatic Stash & Pop When Switching Branches

One of the most common mistakes in Git:

Switching branches with uncommitted changes.

OTTO handles this automatically:

Detects uncommitted work
Stashes changes safely
Switches branches
Restores your work exactly where you left it

Result:

Fewer lost changes
Fewer “why is this broken?” moments
Much smoother collaboration

4. Merge Conflict Reduction by Design

OTTO doesn’t just wait for conflicts, it helps prevent them.

By:

Encouraging smaller, cleaner commits
Keeping branches focused
Maintaining consistent commit structure

Conflicts still happen, but far less often, and when they do, they’re easier to understand.

5. Smarter Releases with Validation & Versioning

When it’s time to release, OTTO steps in:

Validates commit history
Determines release type automatically:
- patch
- minor
- major
Builds and verifies the release
Ensures versioning follows semantic rules

No more guessing:

“Is this a minor or major release?”

OTTO already knows.

Why We Built OTTO (Beyond Just Git)

This wasn’t “just a tool”.

We built OTTO because:

Our project demanded professional-grade workflows
We wanted to simulate real-world software teams
We believed tooling should support developers, not fight them

OTTO helped us:

Stay organized under pressure
Maintain a clean, auditable codebase
Collaborate with confidence as a group

Who OTTO Is For

Student group projects
University capstone teams
Startup engineering teams
Any team tired of Git chaos

If your project has more than one developer, OTTO makes sense.

What’s Next

OTTO started as a solution to our problem, but it’s built with a bigger vision in mind:

Deeper AI understanding of code changes
Smarter conflict prediction
Seamless CI/CD integration

Because great software starts with great collaboration.

Final Thought

Git is powerful, but power without structure creates chaos.

OTTO turns Git into a teammate you can rely on.

If you’ve ever said

“Who changed this?”
or
“Why is this branch broken?”

You already understand why we built OTTO.

OTTO is available on npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/otto-cli

Author: Thevindu Wickramaarachchi