I’m working on configuring a development workflow for a team of two developers. We want to use Git for version control, GitHub for repository hosting, and Lighthouse for issue tracking.
I’ve been using Git mostly as a backup tool rather than for team collaboration, so I need guidance on proper collaborative workflows.
One challenge I’m facing is with the GitHub-Lighthouse integration. When you set up the service hook between GitHub and Lighthouse, it uses a single authentication token. This means all commits from any developer appear to come from the repository owner when updates are sent to Lighthouse.
I’m considering creating separate GitHub repositories for each developer, but I’m unsure about the best workflow practices. How should we handle pulling and pushing changes? What’s the recommended way to keep multiple repositories synchronized?
Are there alternative approaches to solve the authentication issue with Lighthouse integration? I’d appreciate any advice on establishing an efficient workflow for our two-person development team.
lighthouse integration is honestly a pain. we just use github issues directly - works great for small teams and no weird auth issues. if you’re stuck with lighthouse though, try a simple git hook script. parse the commit author info and post to their api manually. takes maybe 10 minutes to set up and you control exactly what gets sent.
Don’t create separate repos for each developer - that’ll just make everything harder and kill the whole point of working together. Stick with one shared repo and use proper branching. For our small team, we went with a basic feature branch setup. Everyone makes their own branches for features or bug fixes, then merges back to main via pull requests. You get code reviews and clean history. For the Lighthouse auth problem, try setting up webhooks that map commits to users by email instead of just using the API token. I’ve seen teams use commit message conventions to manually tag the author in Lighthouse updates too. You could also switch to a newer issue tracker with better Git integration, but I get that might not be realistic with your current setup.
lighthouse is pretty outdated. if you’re stuck with it, check if they support webhook customization - some older tools let you modify the payload format. we used git hooks on the server side to intercept commits and send custom api calls to lighthouse with proper author mapping. way cleaner than fighting their github integration.
Single repository is definitely the way to go. I’ve dealt with similar setup headaches using legacy tools like Lighthouse. Here’s what worked for our team: create a dedicated GitHub service account just for Lighthouse integration, then use commit message formatting to keep developer attribution. We’d add something like “[dev:username]” to commits so our webhook parser could extract it and pass it to Lighthouse correctly. For workflow, start simple with trunk-based development - both devs work on feature branches and merge through pull requests. The key is setting up clear branch naming conventions and consistent commit formats from day one. Trust me, this saves you from workflow refactoring when your team grows. Also heads up - lots of teams have ditched Lighthouse entirely because of these integration headaches. GitHub Issues has gotten way better for small teams.
Been through this exact scenario when we switched from solo dev to team work. The Lighthouse auth token thing is annoying but you can work around it. Skip multiple repos - just configure your local Git with proper author info and use Lighthouse’s email-based user mapping if they have it. We wrote a small middleware script that grabs GitHub webhooks and reformats the data before it hits Lighthouse. Keeps everyone’s identity intact. For workflow, use basic git flow - everyone works on feature branches and does pull requests to merge. Set up branch protection so main requires reviews before merging. Scales well and keeps commit history clean. One thing that really helped us was nailing down commit message standards early. Makes tracking changes way easier in both GitHub and Lighthouse. The jump from backup-style git to real collaboration is rough but totally worth it.