8. Keep track of your progress

A few notes help you remember what you learned and choose a next step. Start whenever useful; you do not need to finish the earlier steps first.

git-into-gsoc progress summary

The summary is a short checklist: the ten phases, with a check mark on the ones you finished and (next) on the first one you have not, then your shortlist, the repositories and issues you track, and how recent your weekly notes are. A fresh installation starts at 0/10 phases done. It is a personal checklist, not an application status or a measure of readiness. Add --output json to get the same information as structured text for a script or an assistant.

Save something you want to revisit

These commands use OWNER, REPO and NUMBER as placeholders. Replace them with the appropriate organization, repository, and issue number you chose.

git-into-gsoc progress shortlist_org --value "SymPy"
git-into-gsoc progress track_repo --value OWNER/REPO
git-into-gsoc progress track_issue --value https://github.com/OWNER/REPO/issues/NUMBER
git-into-gsoc progress note --value "Read the setup guide. Next: run the project locally."
git-into-gsoc progress complete_phase --phase track

The tool saves the text you provide; it does not assign the issue to you. Re-run git-into-gsoc issue <link> before you start work on a tracked issue, because availability changes daily during GSoC season.

The ten phase names are learn, discover, evaluate, orient, community, find_issues, contribute, iterate, proposal, and track. The journey map shows which commands and guide page belong to each, and the guide chapters say when to mark a phase done; mark track once keeping a weekly note is a habit. Mark a phase complete only when its goal is useful and satisfied for you. You can revisit any phase.

Keep a weekly note

git-into-gsoc log --goal "Reproduce #NUMBER" --done "Built sympy, found the failing test" \
  --links https://github.com/OWNER/REPO/issues/NUMBER --stuck "Fixture missing" --next "Ask in the channel"
git-into-gsoc log            # shows your recent notes

Each note has the structure mentors expect in progress updates: goal, what you tried or finished, links, what you learned, where you are stuck, and the next small step. Free-form notes still work with progress note. To read everything later, open progress.json in the data directory shown by doctor. See local data for backup and editing instructions.

Ask what to do next

git-into-gsoc next

next reads the program calendar, your profile, your phases, and your shortlist, re-checks every tracked issue live (and tells you if one was claimed since you last looked), and prints the next few actions with the exact commands. Run it at the start of each session.

There is no CLI command to remove an entry or undo a completed phase. The store is local, does not sync between computers, and does not send updates to mentors. Share a useful update yourself through the community's preferred channel.

If accepted, agree on a reporting schedule with your mentor. If you are not selected, you can still keep contributing, learn from feedback, or explore another project.

Ready to keep going: you have a weekly note habit, and git-into-gsoc next gives you one next step whenever you sit down. That is the end of the guide; the steps repeat for every issue and every proposal.

Return to the guide · Command reference

Source: docs/guide/08-track-progress.md on GitHub. Corrections are welcome.