GitKon 2025 is officially wrapped, and we’re still processing everything that happened over those two days.

Thousands developers and engineering leaders joined us virtually for The Builders Era, our theme celebrating the makers, maintainers, mentors, and leaders redefining what it means to ship responsibly in the age of AI. The conversations were real, the insights were immediately actionable, and the community showed up in ways that reminded us why we do what we do.

If you missed it live check out the replays on GitKon.com

What Attendees Are Saying

The response has been overwhelming. Here’s what builders from around the world had to say:

“GitKon truly lived up to its theme — The Builder’s Era — celebrating everyone who designs, builds, maintains, and leads in today’s AI-first world. Feeling inspired and excited to bring these learnings into my next projects. Let’s build better, smarter, and responsibly.”

“The sessions provided actionable takeaways on integrating AI into development workflows and enhancing productivity, making it an inspiring experience for anyone in software engineering.”

“I’m watching the discussions on AI-assisted workflows, DevEx, and modern software delivery have been genuinely insightful. Interesting to see how GitKraken and others are rethinking Git usability and team workflows. A solid look at where engineering practices are heading in 2025.”

“GitKon Day 1 was awesome. I thought I was already an expert in GitKraken, but I still picked up some really useful tips I had never seen before.”

“I had an energising experience attending GitKon 2025, a global gathering focused on building smarter, faster and better with AI, DevEx and modern Git practices. An incredible event and a colourful reminder that the future belongs to those who build boldly.”

One theme kept showing up in the feedback: practical, actionable content that respects developers’ time and intelligence. No vendor pitches. No aspirational fluff. Just real problems and battle-tested solutions.

Day 1 Fan Favorites

“Your Boss is Measuring You, Now What?” Panel

Panelists: Jordan Wallet, Stasia Zamyshlyaeva, Marino Wijay, Brittany Ellich & Dillon Mulroy

This panel tackled the conversation every developer is having right now: what to do when you’re being measured by systems that don’t understand engineering.

The discussion covered which metrics drive real improvement versus which ones drive gaming behavior, how to manage up when productivity tracking feels like surveillance, and what happens when your company implements metrics that fundamentally misunderstand software development.

What made this panel resonate? The honesty. No corporate sanitization. No platitudes about “embracing data-driven culture.” Just real talk about navigating metrics-driven management without losing your mind or your integrity.

Key Takeaway: The best metrics conversations happen when teams define what success looks like before choosing what to measure. Metrics should support engineering excellence, not replace it.

Chris Geoghegan Keynote: “Context Engineering as a Team Sport”

Speaker: Chris Geoghegan, VP of Product at Zapier

Chris delivered what many attendees called the most practical AI keynote they’d seen all year.

The core insight: The biggest productivity gains from AI don’t come from individual developers using AI tools faster. They come when entire teams share context and eliminate handoffs.

Chris broke down how Zapier approaches context sharing across teams, why handoff elimination matters more than raw coding speed, and how to build systems that preserve context as work moves between people.

If you’ve ever spent hours recreating context for a teammate or lost critical information during a handoff, this keynote addressed exactly that problem.

Key Takeaway: AI amplifies whatever workflow you already have. If your workflow involves constant context loss and handoff friction, AI just makes that friction faster. Fix the system first.

GitKraken Wrapped

Hosts: Melese Michael & Jonathan Silva

Melese and Jonathan walked through everything GitKraken shipped in 2025, from GitKraken MCP (which connects AI tools directly to your repo and commit history) to Commit Composer, plus massive performance improvements (repos opening 5x faster, stash refreshes 100x faster).

What set this session apart? The honesty about what worked, what didn’t, and what the team is prioritizing for 2026. No marketing spin. Just real product development challenges and how the team addressed them.

Attendees particularly appreciated the peek into the product roadmap and the opportunity to see how user feedback directly influenced feature prioritization.

Key Takeaway: The tools should serve the builder, not the other way around. Every feature GitKraken ships starts with a real workflow problem developers face.

Day 2 Fan Favorites

“Measuring AI Impact on Developer Experience” Panel

Panelists: Nathen Harvey, Bill Harding, Najla Elmachtoub, Jeremy Castile

This panel addressed the question every engineering leader is asking: How do you actually measure whether AI is helping your team?

The discussion covered why adoption metrics (percentage of team using AI) tell you nothing about impact, which frameworks actually correlate with business outcomes, and how to have productive conversations with executives about AI ROI without resorting to vanity metrics.

The panel was refreshingly data-driven. No hype. No speculation. Just evidence-based frameworks from people measuring AI impact across thousands of engineering teams.

Key Takeaway: Most companies measure AI adoption. Elite teams measure AI impact on velocity, quality, and developer satisfaction. There’s a massive difference.

Tracy Lee Keynote: “The Next Era of Enablement: From Open Source to AI”

Speaker: Tracy Lee, CEO of This Dot Labs

Tracy redefined what leadership means in the AI era with one insight that attendees couldn’t stop quoting:

“Your job as a leader is not to make everybody use AI. It’s not about controlling the work, but it’s about enabling the learning and building the systems that let people move fast without getting lost.”

The keynote covered how enablement strategies need to evolve when technology moves faster than process, lessons from open source adoption that apply to AI, and building systems that scale innovation without creating chaos.

Tracy’s frameworks weren’t theoretical. They came from years of helping teams modernize at This Dot Labs, guiding complex platform migrations, and navigating every major technology shift of the last decade.

Key Takeaway: Leadership in the AI era is about building systems that enable velocity without chaos. Not mandates. Not surveillance. Systems.

Nathen Harvey Keynote: “AI’s Impact on Software Development: Insights from the DORA AI Capabilities Model”

Speaker: Nathen Harvey, DORA Lead & Developer Advocate at Google Cloud

This was the keynote everyone had been waiting for. Nathen unveiled the 2025 DORA AI Capabilities Model based on surveying 5,000+ technology professionals and analyzing 100+ hours of qualitative research.

The core finding: AI acts as a mirror and multiplier. It amplifies existing strengths in well-run organizations and existing dysfunctions in struggling ones.

Simply adopting AI doesn’t guarantee better outcomes. In fact, without the right foundational capabilities, AI adoption can increase instability while providing minimal performance gains.

DORA identified seven foundational capabilities that amplify AI’s positive impact:

1. Clear and communicated AI stance – Ambiguity about what’s acceptable creates risk and stifles experimentation
2. Healthy data ecosystems – AI is only as good as the data it learns from
3. AI-accessible internal data – Move beyond generic AI by connecting tools to your internal docs and codebases
4. Strong version control practices – As AI increases code volume, version control becomes your critical safety net
5. Working in small batches – A long-standing DORA principle that’s especially powerful with AI
6. User-centric focus – When users aren’t the focus, AI-assisted teams just move quickly in the wrong direction
7. Quality internal platforms – Platforms provide the shared capabilities needed to scale AI benefits

This is the most rigorous research available on AI’s actual impact on software teams. The data cuts through the hype and gives engineering leaders evidence-based frameworks for adoption.

Key Takeaway: 90% of developers now use AI. But adoption doesn’t equal results. The organizations seeing real gains are those investing in the seven foundational capabilities that create conditions where AI-assisted developers thrive.

What Made GitKon 2025 Different

Most developer conferences fall into one of two categories: vendor showcases disguised as education, or aspirational talks about tools you’ll never use.

GitKon 2025 was neither.

As one attendee put it:

“Excellent sessions on Git, collaboration in distributed teams, and new workflows to improve developer productivity. A perfect opportunity to get up to date, interact with the community, and bring new ideas back to the company to put into practice right away.”

The sessions that resonated most were the ones tackling uncomfortable truths: metrics that don’t make sense, AI adoption that doesn’t translate to results, and leadership frameworks that feel insufficient for the pace of change.

Another attendee captured what made the event special:

“The sessions highlighted practical approaches to building high-performing teams, optimizing workflows, and leveraging AI to drive efficiency, offering an inspiring experience for anyone passionate about tech leadership and developer experience.”

Watch the Replays

Every session from GitKon 2025 is now available on-demand at gitkon.com.

Whether you missed the live event or want to revisit specific sessions, all the keynotes, panels, and workshops are ready to watch whenever works for you.

Here’s what you’ll find:

Day 1:

• Your Boss is Measuring You, Now What? (Panel)
• Chris Geoghegan: Context Engineering as a Team Sport
• GitKraken 2025 Wrapped
• The Art of Code Reviews: From Friction to Flow (Shashi Lo)
• Beyond the Commit: GitKraken Workflows That Change How You Ship (Kevin Bost)
• Plus 15+ additional sessions on Git workflows, AI integration, and developer productivity

Day 2:

• Measuring AI Impact on Developer Experience (Panel)
• Tracy Lee: The Next Era of Enablement
• Nathen Harvey: DORA AI Capabilities Model
• AI Security Challenges Every Builder Should Understand (Audrey Long, Microsoft)
• Building Effective Engineering Cultures (Multiple sessions)
• Plus 10+ additional sessions on team leadership, DevEx measurement, and platform engineering

Join Us for GitKon 2026

As one final attendee summed it up:

“Proud to participate in GitKraken GitKon 2025 – Day 1 & Day 2. Learned so much about modern DevEx, collaboration, and AI-powered development workflows. Inspired and ready to build smarter, faster, and better.”

This is exactly what The Builders Era is about. Not hype. Not abstractions. Just real builders sharing what actually works.

Thank you to the thousands of developers and leaders who joined us. You reminded us why we build.

See you at GitKon 2026.

Ready to experience GitKon 2025? All sessions are available on-demand at gitkon.com