Guides

Team Collaboration

Effective strategies for teams working together on creative projects. From small studios to enterprise productions, Dits scales with your team.

Roadmap — networked collaboration is not yet functional

The collaboration models below depend on capabilities that are still being built: networked push/pull, hosted Ditshub, and all dits p2p sync. P2P today is scaffolding— it prints placeholders and transfers no data. What works now is the local VCS, file locking, and local-filesystem clone/push. The networked and P2P workflows here describe the planned design. See the roadmap for status.

Collaboration Models

Centralized

Single server, structured workflow

Central Ditshub server
Branch protection rules
Code review process
CI/CD integration

Peer-to-Peer

Direct sharing without server

Direct machine sync
No central dependency
Great for on-set work
Mesh network support

Hybrid

Best of both worlds

Central for main branches
P2P for daily syncs
Offline capable
Flexible topology

Setting Up Team Access

Ditshub Team Setup

1. Create Organization
Create an organization on Ditshub to manage team access and billing.

2. Invite Team Members

# From web UI or CLI
dits org invite alice@team.com --role editor
dits org invite bob@team.com --role viewer

3. Create Repository

# Create private team repo
dits create myorg/project --private

# Or push existing repo
dits remote add origin https://ditshub.com/myorg/project
dits push -u origin main

File Locking

For binary files that can't be merged, use file locking to prevent conflicts:

# Lock a file before editing
$ dits lock project.prproj
Locked 'project.prproj' for editing.

# Check lock status
$ dits locks
Locked files:
  project.prproj    (you)      2 hours ago
  assets/hero.psd   (alice)    30 min ago

# Try to lock already-locked file
$ dits lock assets/hero.psd
Error: File is locked by alice@team.com
Locked 30 minutes ago with message: "Editing hero image"

# Unlock when done
$ dits unlock project.prproj
Unlocked 'project.prproj'.

Lock Best Practices

Lock files before starting work. Include a message explaining what you're doing. Unlock as soon as you're done, even if you haven't committed yet.

Real-Time Sync with P2P (planned)

In the planned P2P design, one teammate shares a directory and others connect with a join code. The example output below is illustrative — the commands print placeholders and transfer no data today.

# Computer A — share a directory on the local network
$ dits p2p share ./project --local
Connect with: dits p2p connect ABC-123 --local

# Computer B — connect with the join code
$ dits p2p connect ABC-123 --local

Conflict Resolution

# Pull with potential conflicts
$ dits pull origin main
Auto-merging src/config.json
CONFLICT: assets/layout.psd modified by both

# Check conflict status
$ dits status
Unmerged paths:
  both modified: assets/layout.psd

# For binary files, choose a version
$ dits checkout --ours assets/layout.psd    # Keep yours
$ dits checkout --theirs assets/layout.psd  # Take theirs

# Or keep both
$ dits checkout --ours assets/layout.psd
$ mv assets/layout.psd assets/layout-mine.psd
$ dits checkout --theirs assets/layout.psd
$ mv assets/layout.psd assets/layout-theirs.psd
# Manually merge in your editor

# Mark as resolved
$ dits add assets/layout.psd
$ dits commit -m "Resolve layout conflict"

Communication Integration

# Configure Slack notifications
$ dits config hooks.slack.webhook "https://hooks.slack.com/..."

# Notify on important events
$ cat .dits/hooks/post-push
#!/bin/bash
curl -X POST -H 'Content-type: application/json' \
  --data "{
    \"text\": \"$USER pushed to $BRANCH: $(dits log -1 --format=%s)\"
  }" \
  "$SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL"

# Use dits notes for in-repo discussions
$ dits notes add -m "Needs color correction review" abc1234
$ dits notes show abc1234
Notes from you:
  Needs color correction review

Access Control

Role	Permissions	Use Case
Admin	Full control, settings, delete	Project leads, IT
Maintainer	Push to main, merge PRs	Senior team members
Editor	Push branches, create PRs	Regular contributors
Viewer	Read-only access	Clients, stakeholders

Path-Based Permissions

Restrict access to sensitive directories. For example, allow editors to modify assets/ but not config/.