GitHub Commits

Git commits represent the core of a developer’s daily work. When developers push their commits to GitHub, WorkSights receives structured metadata that reflects both the push event and the individual commits included in it. This gives teams clear visibility into engineering activity without accessing any source code.

What WorkSights Receives

When a developer pushes commits to GitHub, WorkSights receives:

The push event, timestamped by GitHub at the time of the push

A list of all commits included in that push, each with:

• Original commit timestamp (which may be hours or days earlier)
• Commit message
• Commit identifier
• Associated GitHub username

WorkSights does not ingest code diffs, file contents, or changed lines.

How Commits Appear in WorkSights

WorkSights represents commits using a two-stage process that mirrors how developers work:

The Push

Appears as a single activity entry in WorkSights, timestamped at the moment the developer pushed to GitHub. This highlights the deliberate, intentional point where work is published.

The Commits Within the Push

After recording the push, WorkSights reconstructs each individual commit and places it on the timeline using the original GitHub-provided timestamp.

This means:

• If a developer commits locally throughout the day and then pushes once, WorkSights shows the actual chronology of their work.
• Commits appear as individual activities that help distinguish bursts of work, context switches, or extended tasks.
• Pushes provide the anchor event that ties the work together.

WorkSights displays the commit message as concise context in the activity title.

Time Tracking from Commit Messages

If a commit message includes a hashtag-style duration value (for example: #45m, #2h, or #1h30m), WorkSights reads this metadata through the GitHub API and associates that duration with the commit.

This gives engineering teams passive, accurate time attribution without requiring developers to log time manually.

If no duration appears in the commit message, WorkSights simply records the commit as activity.

Data Details and Requirements

WorkSights does not ingest, read, or store code content from GitHub.

Only metadata provided by GitHub is used: timestamp, identifier, username, and commit message.

Commits appear for mapped GitHub users only.

Commits created before the integration was installed appear only if they are included in a post-connection push.

WorkSights records the push as the triggering events for commit ingestion.

Next Steps

For pull request lifecycle activity, see GitHub Pull Requests.

For configuration steps and permissions, see GitHub Setup.

For a platform-level explanation of GitHub activity, see GitHub Overview.