A Practical Blockchain‑Integrated Version Control Framework for

Scalable, Secure, and Collaborative Software Engineering with GIT

and CI/CD Support

Kokila S.

, Priyadharahini M.

, Keerthana G.

, S. Muthuselvan

, Monica V.

and Tandra Nagarjuna

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Tagore institute of Engineering and Technology, Deviyakurichi, Salem,

Tamil Nadu, India

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, J.J. College of Engineering and Technology, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil

Nadu, India

Department of Information Technology, KCG College of Technology, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

Department of CSE, New Prince Shri Bhavani College of Engineering and Technology, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

Department of Computer Science and Engineering MLR Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, Telangana, India

Keywords: Blockchain Versioning, Decentralized Collaboration, Git Integration, Secure Software Repositories, CI/CD

Pipeline Support.

Abstract: Over the last few years, building software engineering teams are confronted with the security, scalability and

transparent management of version control systems, particularly in decentralized and distributed development

environments. Current blockchain version control models are in large theoretical, and do not contribute

features to popular tools such as Git version control system or CI/CD pipelines, and do not put a focus on

developer user experience. In this work, we introduce an efficient and scalable blockchain-based version

control system aiming for secure and decentralized collaboration in software development. Our model is based

on smart-contract-driven commit verification, IPFS-supported off-chain data persistence and lightweight

consensus protocols for data integrity, access control and cross system loose time synchronous data

synchronization. When you consider how seamlessly Compose integrates with Git-based environments and

DevOps pipelines, developers can begin using the system without causing too much disturbance in your

existing workflows. The system is evaluated with respect to its feasibility, robustness and potential ability to

refine collaborative software engineering in distributed settings by means of performance benchmarks,

developer usability studies, and case studies.

1 INTRODUCTION

Concurring with the trend in contemporary software

engineering towards more distributed and

collaborative development models, the demand for a

secure, transparent, decentralized VCS has become

more pressing. Centralized VCS systems, for

example, approaches such as GitHub and GitLab, are

commonly used, however these exhibit drawbacks in

the form of single point failure modes and possible

data tampering, and a lack of transparent

governance. Furthermore, with the rise of DevOps

and CI/CD pipelines, the security and trustworthiness

of versioned codebases are also of great concern in

ensuring system reliability and maintainability.

Blockchain holds great promise for addressing

many of these issues in terms of establishing tamper-

proof and decentralized records that can improve trust

and transparency in digital environments. So, the

majority of the current blockchain-based versions

control systems are still hypothetical; they are not

seamlessly compatible with existing tools used in the

industry, MO3 and there is no effort to improve the

user’s experience or scalability in real cases. These

constraints inhibit their acceptance within developer

and enterprise circles.

This work presents BVC, a blockchain-based

VCS tailored for secure and scalable collaborative

software development. In contrast to previous

approaches, the solution is tightly integrated with Git-

based workflows and CI/CD pipelines, providing a

S., K., M., P., G., K., Muthuselvan, S., V., M. and Nagarjuna, T.

A Practical Blockchain-Integrated Version Control Framework for Scalable, Secure, and Collaborative Software Engineering with GIT and CI/CD Support.

DOI: 10.5220/0013869800004919

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Research and Development in Information, Communication, and Computing Technologies (ICRDICCT‘25 2025) - Volume 1, pages

591-597

ISBN: 978-989-758-777-1

591

familiar yet hardened development environment.

Composed of smart contracts for commit validation

and IPFS for distributed storage, and with lightweight

consensus mechanism for efficiency, this offers

verifiable, immutable and traceable code

contributions among all involved nodes.

Furthermore, the library stresses user accessibility,

compatibility with edge devices, and modular

extensibility, which are ideal for enterprise-level

projects and open-source collaborations.

This paper intends to close the gap between

theoretical blockchain models and practical software

engineering development with a deploy- able, dev-

friendly, and performance-focused version control.

Performance and analysis as well as evaluations on

prototype and real-world case studies demonstrate the

feasibility of our proposal in that it turns the

collaborative development into trusted process.

2 PROBLEM STATEMENT

In the changing world of collaborative software

building, teams are becoming more and more

scattered along geographies, organizations and

networks. Traditional version control does not scale

to the needs of large, distributed projects. Data at rest

are always exposed to data tampering and

unauthorized access in a centralized repository, and

there are even risks for system crashes that holds the

source code or proprietary code or even shared

equally the open source developers to centeralized

attack paths all over the Internet. What’s more,

existing systems have no built-in feature for secured

audit trail, contributor vetting and immutable code

history features absolutely essential for

accountability in today’s DevOps pipelines.

Although there is increasing attention towards the

blockchain technology as a solution, current solutions

are either theoretical or concentrate in the data

immutability aspect and ignore the integration with

popular ecosystem tools such as Git and continuous

integration systems and developer workflow. Most of

the existing model proposals do not consider practical

to solve such as scalability of the solution, perform

the conflict resolution, perform the user’s

authentication, synchronize the repository in real

time, etc. Moreover, usability hurdles, including

cumbersome key management and performance

overheads, also dissuade developer adoption.

A practical, scalable and developer-friendly

alternative that bridges the transparency and security

of blockchain and the flexibility and familiarity of the

current version control systems is thus an imminent

requirement. The lack of such a system hinders

secure, decentralized software collaboration in places

where trust cannot be taken for granted, and tamper-

resistant is essential.

3 LITERATURE SURVEY

Use of blockchain with software version control

systems is gaining popularity such as to have security,

transparency and decentralization in the

collaborative development. Hammad et al. (2023)

designed a decentralized blockchainized architecture

customized for software versioning; however, the

study emphasized the difficulty in its adoption in

practice because of poor Git integration and system

performance limitations. Similarly, Haque et al.

(2024) proposed a model of blockchain-IPFS

integration for secure and efficient repository hosting,

but the work was primarily conceptual and was not

tested for the impact on real developer communities.

Fahmideh et al. (2023) performed an in-depth survey

of blockchain-based software systems, revealing

theoretical but practical deployments and tooling

focused gap. Demi and Bodemer (2023) investigated

the broader impact of blockchain for decentralized

software innovation, arguing for its transformative

nature, but also its misfit with traditional

development practices. Uddin and Hasnat (2022)

concentrated on secure file sharing based on

blockchain using PKI, highly secure in data but not in

collaborative version control. Zhao et al. (2021)

introduced a blockchain-enabled version control

system but their proposal was not able to address

critical issues related to CI/CD integration or

collaborative conflict resolution.

Chen et al. (2022) advanced the discussion by

proposing a decentralized software artifact

management model, but they also missed a complete

integration of their framework with tools such as Git

or GitLab. Wang & Zhang (2023) conducted a

tecnical survey for software configuration

management in blockchain, and commented

scalability and usability are the major challenges.

Kumar and Singh (2024) expanded on these issues by

investigating whether blockchain can be used in

distributed software teams, but noted that the lack of

any explicit governance structures and onboarding

processes.

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Lee and Kim (2025) An unpackaged solution to

implementation challenges covering access control

and system latency in the context of decentralized

version control systems. García & Fernández (2022)

studied blockchain-based CI working environments,

but their model included heavy customization that can

be the adoption barrier. Nguyen and Hoang (2023)

explored the benefits of security improvements using

blockchain, but for access to repositories, not entire

versioning systems.

Patel & Desai (2021) and Singh & Verma (2022)

gave basic ideas of decentralized version control,

with the literature reviews and theoretical

background, but no performance evaluations or live

deployment were there. Rossi, Conti (2024) tried to

provide versioning systems with blockchain backing,

but collaborative governance or rollback mechanism

were not considered. An anon. disc. disclosed here

(2023) has proposed a modular blockchain-driven

config system too, however, demonstrating its

scalability for high-frequency commits was not

attempted in the prior art.

Wang and Liu (2021) coupled the above method

with blockchain and IPFS for decentralized file

storage in versioning, however, merge conflict

processing, and real-time synchronization still keep

on existing. Zhang, Zhao (2024) reviewed access

control on blockchain in collaborative software but

they did not cover interoperability with prevailing

development tools. Almeida and Silva (2022)

investigated a combination of Git with the

blockchain, presenting a preliminary design that does

not work with CI/CD pipeline.

Other works include those of Rossi and Conti

(2024), Nguyen and Hoang (2023), and Fahmideh et

al. (2023) show the increasing interest in enriching

cooperative software development with decentralised

technology. However, one shared drawback for these

works is that they all lack end-to-end systems that are

both scalable and developer-friendly, and can be

easily integrated into users’ existing pipeline.

We found that theoretical blockchain-based

principles have a significant gulf between this and

practical solutions with the ability to cater for

specific needs of complex modern collaborative

software development at scale. It highlights the need

for a solution that protects code repositories with

immutability and decentralization without sacrificing

usability, performance and the ability to integrate

with the wider landscape of developer tools.

4 METHODOLOGY

The proposed research takes the approach of design

and implementation to create a blockchain-enabled

version control system that supports secure,

decentralized, and collaborative software

development. The goal is primarily to create a

feasible system that can be easily integrated into real-

world Git workflows and provide additional security

and immutability as well as decentralized

collaboration.

The investigation starts from a requirements

analysis, through which weaknesses of traditional

versioning systems meet the strengths of blockchain

technologies. This gap analysis yields critical

architectural elements, specifically a blockchain

ledger for commit verification, IPFS for file storage

on network, smart contracts for contributor

governance and access control, and REST APIs to

allow interaction between the user’s Git environment

as well as the blockchain backend.

Figure 1 show the

Workflow of the Blockchain-Supported Version

Control Framework.

Figure 1: Workflow of the Blockchain-Supported Version

Control Framework.

A Practical Blockchain-Integrated Version Control Framework for Scalable, Secure, and Collaborative Software Engineering with GIT and

CI/CD Support

593

For the implementation, the framework is built by

Ethereum smart contracts (using Solidity), IPFS to

store off-chain contents and Node. js middleware for

repository operations. Git hooks are specialized to

initiate blockchain interactions, including logging

commit hashes, confirming developer identities, and

validating access rights. Each commit is hashed and

indexed onto the blockchain via smart contracts

storing metadata such as author ID, timestamp, and a

lineage of versions. File contents themselves are on

IPFS, leading to reduced blockchain bloat, while

preserving independently verifiable access to files

data. Performance and scalability are solved by using

a lightweight consensus mechanism, such as PoA, to

decrease the latency in traditional blockchain

networks. The design is modular; individual

components such as the blockchain network and/or

storage backend can be swapped, depending on the

details of the deployment (for example, private

Hyperledger, public Ethereum testnet).

Security mechanisms such as asymmetric key

encryption is used to handle developer authentication,

secure commit operations, and role-based access

control. Smart-contract-triggered webhooks can

trigger deployment pipelines automatically once

committed changes are approved, and the framework

integrates with CI/CD tools.

A mixed evaluation procedure is used. First, we

evaluate the system performance from different

network and collaboration aspects, such as commit

latency, blockchain transaction time, and storage

retrieval time. Second, usability is evaluated based on

the developer feedback generated by user trials and

case studies. The system provides a friendly Git

interface enriched with secure operations that

developers can use, and includes usability, learning

curve, and collaboration efficiency evaluations.

The approach focuses on modularity, security and

interoperability at each stage of the process, so that

the framework is not just technically-sound, but also

realistic for broad implementation. The system

leverages blockchain features and real-world

development processes to provide a scalable and

reliable solution for contemporary collaborative

software engineering.

5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The application of the designed blockchain based

version control model proved an efficient system in

regard to system security, decentralisation and

workflow integration. After embedding the solution

into simulated distributed development

environments, several evaluations were performed in

order to quantify the degree of effectiveness of the

solution under different views, regarding issues such

as performance, usability, scalability, and security.

Performance tests showed that the system was

capable of logging and proving commit metadata into

the blockchain with an average latency of 1.8-2.3

seconds based on PoA (Proof-of-Authority)

consensus algorithm. This allowed the dissimination

to occur very rapidly between nodes without

impacting upon the responsiveness of the system. We

achieved storage efficiency by using IPFS to store file

contents offchain, which avoided blockchain bloat

and kept tamper-proof references to all the file

versions. As the retrieval time from IPFS persisted

below 1.5 seconds for files smaller than 2 MB, we

could verify its practicality for real-world version

control tasks.

Figure 2 show the Feature Comparison:

Blockchain vs Traditional VCS.

Figure 2: Feature Comparison: Blockchain vs Traditional

VCS.

We also tested scalability by simulating many

users pushing changes simultaneously with different

geographic locations. The system was stable with up

to 50 concurrent commits, and the overhead for the

commit confirmation is negligible. This adds to the

evidence that lightweight consensus algorithms, as

long as they are well tuned, can provide scalable

version control without the performance overhead

typical of classic blockchain networks.

Table 1 show

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the Performance Metrics of the Blockchain-

Integrated Commit Workflow.

Table 1: Performance Metrics of the Blockchain-Integrated

Commit Workflow.

Metric

Average

Value

Max

Value

Min

Value

Commit-to-

Blockchain

Latenc

2.1 sec

2.6

sec

1.8

sec

IPFS File

Retrieval

Time

1.3 sec

1.7

sec

1.1

sec

Blockchain

Transaction

Cost (

as)

0.001

ETH

0.001

ETH

0.000

ETH

Figure 3: Commit Latency vs Number of Contributors.

Security assessment was mainly targeted on

commit immutability, user identity verification, and

accessibility management. Figure 3 show the Commit

Latency vs Number of Contributors Every commit

was cryptographically signed and stored on-chain, so

that it was impossible to repudiate or trace. Role-

based access control (RBAC) was implemented

smart contracts that blocked non-permitted push or

modifications. The capability of the system to revert

to previous states of code using blockchain timestamp

also established a backup copying system that

reduces the risk of accidental or deliberate overwrite.

Table 3 show the Developer Usability Ratings from

Experimental Evaluation.

Table 2: Developer Usability Ratings from Experimental

Evaluation.

Usability Parameter

Average Rating

(out of 5)

Ease of Integration

with Gi

4.6

Understanding

Blockchain Lo

4.2

Key Management

Experience

3.8

System

Responsiveness

4.5

Overall User

Satisfaction

4.4

Figure 4: Developer Usability Ratings.

Usability testing with developers A small number

of software developers were involved in usability

testing on a collaborative coding task using the

system. Figure 4 show the Developer Usability

Ratings. The response indicated that it was very easy

to integrate with native Git workflow while also

automated the commit checking with smart contracts

only. Some initial private key and configuration

management friction was observed, which was

mitigated through UI improvements and integration

with the secure keystore in later iterations.

The comparison against existing systems, such as

GitHub and Bitbucket, revealed that the auditability

A Practical Blockchain-Integrated Version Control Framework for Scalable, Secure, and Collaborative Software Engineering with GIT and

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595

and transparency had increased to a great extent. To

speed up commit history What these centralized

platforms certainly do not have in-built is tamper-

proof commit history and governance. The new

proposed system, however slightly heavier on

resources, made up for it with more robust data

integrity and collaboration protection important for

projects in use, being built for the government, and

enterprise grade, and the open-source bits of same.

Table 4 show the System Resource Utilization Under

Varying Node Counts.

Table 3: System Resource Utilization Under Varying Node

Counts.

Number

of Nodes

Avg

CPU

Usa

Avg

Memory

Usa

Commit

Success

Rate

5 Nodes 18% 512 MB 100%

10 Nodes 26% 768 MB 100%

25 Nodes 39% 1.2 GB 98.5%

50 Nodes 47% 1.8 GB 96.2%

Figure 5: System Resource Usage vs Node Count.

Taken together, this demonstrates that a version

control system with integrated blockchain support is

capable of improving the security, accountability and

decentralization (without noticeable impact on

performance and usability). Figure 5 show the System

Resource Usage vs Node Count. This conversation

also serves to legitimise that adding blockchain to

your usual development toolkit is not only imaginable

today, but could end up transforming contemporary

software engineering as we know it.

6 CONCLUSIONS

This paper has introduced a feasible and scalable

blockchain-based version control mechanism suited

for requirements of secured and decentralized

collaboration in software engineering domain. The

proposed system serves as the link between

conceptual blockchain solutions and real-world

development processes and the sizeable player base,

exploring the possibility of integrating this disruptive

technology into popular tools (like Git and CI/CD

pipelines). Based on the smart contracts, distributed

storage over IPFS, and light consensus mechanisms,

the framework effectively improves the integrity of

codebase, the accountability of contributors, and the

resilience of repository in distributed environments.

The findings confirm a decentralized model as

eliminating key weaknesses of the traditional

centralized version control systems and providing

teams with immutable commit logs, a secure audit

trail, and verifiable collaboration. As an aid to both

open-source and enterprise development the system

is compatible with existing development practices

and is designed to be modular for easy adaptation.

Additionally, the user-centered evaluation

suggests that developers can adopt the secure

ecosystem without any major learning curve and

could therefore be a viable solution for the present-

day development environments requiring trust,

transparency, and distributed team dynamics. We

believe this work paves the way for more novel

models for decentralized software lifecycle

management and invites future research in areas such

as blockchain-based access control, automated smart

contract auditing, and AI-supported dispute

resolution.

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COMMUNICATION, AND COMPUTING TECHNOLOGIES

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A Practical Blockchain-Integrated Version Control Framework for Scalable, Secure, and Collaborative Software Engineering with GIT and

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