More accurate representation of Git commits

If you're familiar with how Git works, you might know that each commit has two dates — "Author Date" and "Commit Date." The former indicates when the commit was initially made, and the latter is updated every time the commit is modified, e.g., after rebase. Often, these dates match, but sometimes they don't, and the difference between them could be substantial.

Early on, when we started working on Teamplify, we debated which of these two dates we should use in the interface and for analytics. We learned that all major code hostings - GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket mostly (although not always) use the Commit Date in their interface. We thought consistency with code hostings mattered, so we decided to use the Commit Date.

Fast-forward to today, and we have collected enough feedback from our clients to realize it was a mistake. It turned out that consistency with the code hosting interfaces doesn't matter as much as annoyances when people rebase their PRs and, suddenly, their dates in our analytics change.

This is why, starting today, we are switching our analytics to using the Author Date for Git commits. You don't have to do anything; the change has already been applied to all Git data in Teamplify. If you have any questions about how it works or experience any problems after the update, please don't hesitate to contact our customer support.