(TL;DR) The Gerrit Code Review project has an ambitious roadmap for 2025 and beyond. Gerrit 3.12 (H1 2025) will focus on JGit performance improvements, X.509 signed commit support, and enhanced Owners and Analytics plugins. Gerrit 3.13 (H2 2025) aims to further optimize push performance, UI usability, and plugin updates, including Kafka and Zookeeper integrations.

The k8s-Gerrit initiative will improve Gerrit’s deployment on Kubernetes, ensuring better scalability and resilience. Looking ahead, Gerrit 4.0 (2026/2027) plans to decouple the review UI from the JGit server, enabling alternative review interfaces and improved flexibility.

The February 2025 GerritMeets in Sunnyvale CA on the 19th of February 2025 will be all about roadmap and Q&A on what we would like to see coming in Gerrit. See below more details about Gerrit Code Review in 2025 and the future ahead.

Gerrit 3.12 (Target: H1 2025)

JGit Performance Improvements

The development team is prioritizing significant performance enhancements in JGit, the Java implementation of Git used by Gerrit. Key objectives include:

• Speeding Up Conflicting Ref Names on Push: This aims to reduce delays during push operations when ref name conflicts occur.
• Enhancing SearchForReuse Latency for Large Monorepos: The goal is to improve latency by at least an order of magnitude, facilitating more efficient operations in extensive monorepositories.
• Improving Object Lookup Across Multiple Packfiles: Efforts are underway to accelerate object lookup times by at least tenfold, enhancing performance in repositories with numerous packfiles.
• Parallelizing Bitmap Generation: By enabling bitmap generation across multiple cores, the team aims to expedite this process, contributing to overall performance gains.

Gerrit Core Experience Enhancements

A notable feature planned for this release is the support for X.509 signed commits, which will bolster security and authenticity in the code review process.

Owners Plugin Improvements

Enhancements to the Owners Plugin are set to provide clearer insights and streamlined interactions:

• Action Requirements Display: Explicitly showing required actions by each owner at the file level.
• Detailed Pending Reviews: Offering more comprehensive information on pending reviews by owners.
• Easier Contact with File Owners: Facilitating more straightforward communication with file owners.

Analytics Plugin Optimization

The analytics plugin is slated for improvements to enhance speed and usability:

• Repo Manifest Discovery: Native support for discovering repository manifests.
• Faster Metrics Extraction: Accelerated extraction of metrics for branches, aiding in quicker data analysis.

Gerrit 3.13 (Target: H2 2025)

JGit Performance and Concurrency Enhancements

Building upon previous improvements, version 3.13 aims to further optimize performance:

• Optional Connectivity and Collision Checks: Improving push performance by allowing the skipping of certain checks when appropriate.
• Customizable Lock-Interval Retries: Providing flexibility in managing lock intervals to enhance concurrency handling.
• Read-Only Multi-Pack Index Support: Introducing support for read-only multi-pack indexes to improve repository access efficiency.

Gerrit Core and UI Experience Enhancements

User experience remains a focal point with planned features such as:

• File List Filtering: Allowing users to filter the file list in the change review screen for more efficient navigation.
• Headless Gerrit Packaging: Offering a version of Gerrit that serves only read/write Git protocols, catering to users seeking a streamlined experience.

Plugin Updates

The roadmap includes updates to key plugins:

• Kafka Events-Broker: Upgrading to support Kafka 3.9.0, enhancing event handling capabilities.
• Zookeeper Global-Refdb: Updating to support Zookeeper 3.9.3, improving global reference database management.

Replication Plugin Enhancements

Efforts to simplify configuration and improve performance include:

• Dynamic Endpoint Management: Introducing APIs for creating and updating replication endpoints dynamically.
• UI Integration: Displaying replication status within the user interface for better visibility.
• Reduced Latency on Force-Push: Improving replication latency during force-push operations by applying objects with prerequisites.

k8s-Gerrit

The k8s-Gerrit initiative focuses on deploying Gerrit within Kubernetes environments, aiming to enhance scalability, resilience, and ease of management. This approach leverages Kubernetes’ orchestration capabilities to provide automated deployment, scaling, and management of Gerrit instances, facilitating more efficient resource utilization and operational consistency.

Gerrit 4.0 (Target: 2026/2027)

Looking ahead, Gerrit 4.0 is set to introduce significant architectural changes:

• Decoupling Gerrit Review UI and JGit Server: This separation will allow the Gerrit UI and JGit server to operate as independent services, providing greater flexibility in deployment and scaling.
• Enabling Alternative Review UIs: By decoupling components, the platform will support the integration of other review interfaces, such as pull-request systems, offering users a broader range of tools tailored to their workflows.

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The Gerrit community is encouraged to stay engaged with these developments, as the roadmap is subject to change. Contributors planning to work on features not listed are advised to inform the Engineering Steering Committee (ESC) to ensure alignment with the project’s goals.

The future of Gerrit Code Review in 2025 and beyond is truly remarkable, come and join GerritMeets on Wednesday, February 19, 2025 – 11:45 AM to 1:00 PM PDT

Luca Milanesio
Gerrit Code Review Maintainer
Gerrit Code Review Release Manager
Member of the Gerrit Code Review Engineering Steering Committee