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Local Configuration

When managing multiple git repositories with GRM, you’ll generally have a configuration file containing information about all the repos you have. GRM then makes sure that you repositories match that configuration. If they don’t exist yet, it will clone them. It will also make sure that all remotes are configured properly.

Let’s try it out:

Get the example configuration

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSfO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hakoerber/git-repo-manager/master/example.config.toml

Then, you’re ready to run the first sync. This will clone all configured repositories and set up the remotes.

$ grm repos sync config --config example.config.toml
[⚙] Cloning into "/home/me/projects/git-repo-manager" from "https://code.hkoerber.de/hannes/git-repo-manager.git"
[✔] git-repo-manager: Repository successfully cloned
[⚙] git-repo-manager: Setting up new remote "github" to "https://github.com/hakoerber/git-repo-manager.git"
[✔] git-repo-manager: OK
[⚙] Cloning into "/home/me/projects/dotfiles" from "https://github.com/hakoerber/dotfiles.git"
[✔] dotfiles: Repository successfully cloned
[✔] dotfiles: OK

If you run it again, it will report no changes:

$ grm repos sync config -c example.config.toml
[✔] git-repo-manager: OK
[✔] dotfiles: OK

Generate your own configuration

Now, if you already have a few repositories, it would be quite laborious to write a configuration from scratch. Luckily, GRM has a way to generate a configuration from an existing file tree:

grm repos find local ~/your/project/root > config.toml

This will detect all repositories and remotes and write them to config.toml.

You can exclude repositories from the generated configuration by providing a regex that will be test against the path of each discovered repository:

grm repos find local ~/your/project/root --exclude "^.*/subdir/match-(foo|bar)/.*$" > config.toml

Show the state of your projects

$ grm repos status --config example.config.toml
╭──────────────────┬──────────┬────────┬───────────────────┬────────┬─────────╮
│ Repo             ┆ Worktree ┆ Status ┆ Branches          ┆ HEAD   ┆ Remotes │
╞══════════════════╪══════════╪════════╪═══════════════════╪════════╪═════════╡
│ git-repo-manager ┆          ┆ ✔      ┆ branch: master    ┆ master ┆ github  │
│                  ┆          ┆        ┆ <origin/master> ✔ ┆        ┆ origin  │
├╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌┼╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌┤
│ dotfiles         ┆          ┆ ✔      ┆                   ┆ Empty  ┆ origin  │
╰──────────────────┴──────────┴────────┴───────────────────┴────────┴─────────╯

If you have a lot of repositories, the interesting ones are usually those that hold something that is not backed up on a remote yet. Use --dirty to hide all repositories that are fully backed up:

$ grm repos status --config example.config.toml --dirty
╭──────────────────┬──────────┬─────────────┬──────────────────────┬────────┬─────────╮
│ Repo             ┆ Worktree ┆ Status      ┆ Branches             ┆ HEAD   ┆ Remotes │
╞══════════════════╪══════════╪═════════════╪══════════════════════╪════════╪═════════╡
│ git-repo-manager ┆          ┆ Modified: 1 ┆ branch: master       ┆ master ┆ github  │
│                  ┆          ┆             ┆ <origin/master> [+1] ┆        ┆ origin  │
╰──────────────────┴──────────┴─────────────┴──────────────────────┴────────┴─────────╯

A repository is considered dirty when either of the following is true:

  • There are uncommitted changes in the working tree (new, modified or deleted files, including untracked ones).
  • There is a branch that is ahead of or diverged from its remote tracking branch, so it holds commits that the remote does not have.
  • There is a branch that does not have a remote tracking branch at all, as it only exists locally.

A branch that is merely behind its remote tracking branch does not make a repository dirty. Everything it holds is on the remote already, you are just missing something the remote has, which is a git pull and not a risk of losing work.

Note that for repositories in a worktree setup, only the branches are taken into account, as those repositories do not have a working tree of their own.

You can also use status without --config to check the repository you’re currently in:

$ cd ~/example-projects/dotfiles
$ grm repos status
╭──────────┬──────────┬────────┬──────────┬───────┬─────────╮
│ Repo     ┆ Worktree ┆ Status ┆ Branches ┆ HEAD  ┆ Remotes │
╞══════════╪══════════╪════════╪══════════╪═══════╪═════════╡
│ dotfiles ┆          ┆ ✔      ┆          ┆ Empty ┆ origin  │
╰──────────┴──────────┴────────┴──────────┴───────┴─────────╯

Fix up missing tracking branches

Branches that show up as <!local> do not have a remote tracking branch. This happens easily when pushing with plain git push instead of git push --set-upstream. To repair those in bulk, use set-upstream:

$ grm repos set-upstream --config example.config.toml
[✔] git-repo-manager: Set upstream of "feature" to "origin/feature"
[✔] dotfiles: Set upstream of "wip" to "origin/wip"

For every local branch that does not have a remote tracking branch, GRM looks for a branch of the same name on the remotes of that repository:

  • If exactly one remote has such a branch, it is set as the upstream.
  • If no remote has such a branch, the branch is left alone. It only exists locally, so there is nothing to track.
  • If more than one remote has such a branch, there is no obvious candidate. GRM refuses to guess, warns and exits with code 2.

Branches that already have a remote tracking branch are never touched, so the command is safe to rerun.

Note that GRM only looks at the refs that are already present locally, it does not contact the remotes. If a branch was pushed from another machine, fetch first, otherwise there is no refs/remotes/<remote>/<branch> for GRM to find.

Just like status, set-upstream works on the repository you’re currently in when used without --config:

$ cd ~/example-projects/dotfiles
$ grm repos set-upstream
[✔] dotfiles: Set upstream of "wip" to "origin/wip"

To prevent the problem in the first place, tell git to set the upstream on push automatically (requires git 2.37 or newer):

git config --global push.autoSetupRemote true

Find files that are not in any repository

A file that ended up next to your repositories instead of inside one of them is not backed up by anything. unmanaged-files walks each tree root and lists everything that is not part of a repository:

$ grm repos unmanaged-files --config example.config.toml
/home/example/projects/docs
/home/example/projects/notes.txt

Directories that do not contain any repository are reported as a whole, so a directory with a thousand files in it gives you one line, not a thousand. Once there is a repository somewhere below a directory, its remaining contents are listed one by one instead:

~/projects/
├── git-repo-manager/     # a repository, skipped
├── notes.txt             # reported
├── docs/                 # reported as a whole, no repository below it
│   └── draft.md
└── nested/
    ├── dotfiles/         # a repository, skipped
    └── loose.txt         # reported, "nested" does contain a repository

The command exits with code 2 if it found anything, so it can be used as a check. Symlinks are never followed, as they could point outside of the tree.

Without --config, the current directory is used as the root:

$ cd ~/projects && grm repos unmanaged-files

YAML

By default, the repo configuration uses TOML. If you prefer YAML, just give it a YAML file instead (file ending does not matter, grm will figure out the format). For generating a configuration, pass --format yaml to grm repo find which generates a YAML configuration instead of a TOML configuration.