1GITREPOSITORY-LAYOU(5) Git Manual GITREPOSITORY-LAYOU(5)
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6 gitrepository-layout - Git Repository Layout
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9 $GIT_DIR/*
10
12 A Git repository comes in two different flavours:
13 · a .git directory at the root of the working tree;
15 · a <project>.git directory that is a bare repository (i.e. without
17 its own working tree), that is typically used for exchanging
18 histories with others by pushing into it and fetching from it.
19 Note: Also you can have a plain text file .git at the root of your
21 working tree, containing gitdir: <path> to point at the real directory
22 that has the repository. This mechanism is often used for a working
23 tree of a submodule checkout, to allow you in the containing
24 superproject to git checkout a branch that does not have the submodule.
25 The checkout has to remove the entire submodule working tree, without
26 losing the submodule repository.
27 These things may exist in a Git repository.
29 objects
31 Object store associated with this repository. Usually an object
32 store is self sufficient (i.e. all the objects that are referred to
33 by an object found in it are also found in it), but there are a few
34 ways to violate it.
35 1. You could have an incomplete but locally usable repository by
37 creating a shallow clone. See git-clone(1).
38 2. You could be using the objects/info/alternates or
40 $GIT_ALTERNATE_OBJECT_DIRECTORIES mechanisms to borrow objects
41 from other object stores. A repository with this kind of
42 incomplete object store is not suitable to be published for use
43 with dumb transports but otherwise is OK as long as
44 objects/info/alternates points at the object stores it borrows
45 from.
46 objects/[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]
48 A newly created object is stored in its own file. The objects are
49 splayed over 256 subdirectories using the first two characters of
50 the sha1 object name to keep the number of directory entries in
51 objects itself to a manageable number. Objects found here are often
52 called unpacked (or loose) objects.
53 objects/pack
55 Packs (files that store many object in compressed form, along with
56 index files to allow them to be randomly accessed) are found in
57 this directory.
58 objects/info
60 Additional information about the object store is recorded in this
61 directory.
62 objects/info/packs
64 This file is to help dumb transports discover what packs are
65 available in this object store. Whenever a pack is added or
66 removed, git update-server-info should be run to keep this file
67 up-to-date if the repository is published for dumb transports. git
68 repack does this by default.
69 objects/info/alternates
71 This file records paths to alternate object stores that this object
72 store borrows objects from, one pathname per line. Note that not
73 only native Git tools use it locally, but the HTTP fetcher also
74 tries to use it remotely; this will usually work if you have
75 relative paths (relative to the object database, not to the
76 repository!) in your alternates file, but it will not work if you
77 use absolute paths unless the absolute path in filesystem and web
78 URL is the same. See also objects/info/http-alternates.
79 objects/info/http-alternates
81 This file records URLs to alternate object stores that this object
82 store borrows objects from, to be used when the repository is
83 fetched over HTTP.
84 refs
86 References are stored in subdirectories of this directory. The git
87 prune command knows to preserve objects reachable from refs found
88 in this directory and its subdirectories.
89 refs/heads/name
91 records tip-of-the-tree commit objects of branch name
92 refs/tags/name
94 records any object name (not necessarily a commit object, or a tag
95 object that points at a commit object).
96 refs/remotes/name
98 records tip-of-the-tree commit objects of branches copied from a
99 remote repository.
100 refs/replace/<obj-sha1>
102 records the SHA-1 of the object that replaces <obj-sha1>. This is
103 similar to info/grafts and is internally used and maintained by
104 git-replace(1). Such refs can be exchanged between repositories
105 while grafts are not.
106 packed-refs
108 records the same information as refs/heads/, refs/tags/, and
109 friends record in a more efficient way. See git-pack-refs(1).
110 HEAD
112 A symref (see glossary) to the refs/heads/ namespace describing the
113 currently active branch. It does not mean much if the repository is
114 not associated with any working tree (i.e. a bare repository), but
115 a valid Git repository must have the HEAD file; some porcelains may
116 use it to guess the designated "default" branch of the repository
117 (usually master). It is legal if the named branch name does not
118 (yet) exist. In some legacy setups, it is a symbolic link instead
119 of a symref that points at the current branch.
120 HEAD can also record a specific commit directly, instead of being a
122 symref to point at the current branch. Such a state is often called
123 detached HEAD. See git-checkout(1) for details.
124 branches
126 A slightly deprecated way to store shorthands to be used to specify
127 a URL to git fetch, git pull and git push. A file can be stored as
128 branches/<name> and then name can be given to these commands in
129 place of repository argument. See the REMOTES section in git-
130 fetch(1) for details. This mechanism is legacy and not likely to be
131 found in modern repositories.
132 hooks
134 Hooks are customization scripts used by various Git commands. A
135 handful of sample hooks are installed when git init is run, but all
136 of them are disabled by default. To enable, the .sample suffix has
137 to be removed from the filename by renaming. Read githooks(5) for
138 more details about each hook.
139 index
141 The current index file for the repository. It is usually not found
142 in a bare repository.
143 info
145 Additional information about the repository is recorded in this
146 directory.
147 info/refs
149 This file helps dumb transports discover what refs are available in
150 this repository. If the repository is published for dumb
151 transports, this file should be regenerated by git
152 update-server-info every time a tag or branch is created or
153 modified. This is normally done from the hooks/update hook, which
154 is run by the git-receive-pack command when you git push into the
155 repository.
156 info/grafts
158 This file records fake commit ancestry information, to pretend the
159 set of parents a commit has is different from how the commit was
160 actually created. One record per line describes a commit and its
161 fake parents by listing their 40-byte hexadecimal object names
162 separated by a space and terminated by a newline.
163 info/exclude
165 This file, by convention among Porcelains, stores the exclude
166 pattern list. .gitignore is the per-directory ignore file. git
167 status, git add, git rm and git clean look at it but the core Git
168 commands do not look at it. See also: gitignore(5).
169 info/sparse-checkout
171 This file stores sparse checkout patterns. See also: git-read-
172 tree(1).
173 remotes
175 Stores shorthands for URL and default refnames for use when
176 interacting with remote repositories via git fetch, git pull and
177 git push commands. See the REMOTES section in git-fetch(1) for
178 details. This mechanism is legacy and not likely to be found in
179 modern repositories.
180 logs
182 Records of changes made to refs are stored in this directory. See
183 git-update-ref(1) for more information.
184 logs/refs/heads/name
186 Records all changes made to the branch tip named name.
187 logs/refs/tags/name
189 Records all changes made to the tag named name.
190 shallow
192 This is similar to info/grafts but is internally used and
193 maintained by shallow clone mechanism. See --depth option to git-
194 clone(1) and git-fetch(1).
195 modules
197 Contains the git-repositories of the submodules.
198
200 git-init(1), git-clone(1), git-fetch(1), git-pack-refs(1), git-gc(1),
201 git-checkout(1), gitglossary(7), The Git User’s Manual[1]
202
204 Part of the git(1) suite.
205
207 1. The Git User’s Manual
208 file:///usr/share/doc/git-1.8.3.1/user-manual.html
209Git 1.8.3.1 11/19/2018 GITREPOSITORY-LAYOU(5)