1GITREPOSITORY-LAYOU(5) Git Manual GITREPOSITORY-LAYOU(5)
2
6 gitrepository-layout - Git Repository Layout
7
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 This directory is ignored if $GIT_COMMON_DIR is set and
48 "$GIT_COMMON_DIR/objects" will be used instead.
49 objects/[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]
51 A newly created object is stored in its own file. The objects are
52 splayed over 256 subdirectories using the first two characters of
53 the sha1 object name to keep the number of directory entries in
54 objects itself to a manageable number. Objects found here are often
55 called unpacked (or loose) objects.
56 objects/pack
58 Packs (files that store many object in compressed form, along with
59 index files to allow them to be randomly accessed) are found in
60 this directory.
61 objects/info
63 Additional information about the object store is recorded in this
64 directory.
65 objects/info/packs
67 This file is to help dumb transports discover what packs are
68 available in this object store. Whenever a pack is added or
69 removed, git update-server-info should be run to keep this file up
70 to date if the repository is published for dumb transports. git
71 repack does this by default.
72 objects/info/alternates
74 This file records paths to alternate object stores that this object
75 store borrows objects from, one pathname per line. Note that not
76 only native Git tools use it locally, but the HTTP fetcher also
77 tries to use it remotely; this will usually work if you have
78 relative paths (relative to the object database, not to the
79 repository!) in your alternates file, but it will not work if you
80 use absolute paths unless the absolute path in filesystem and web
81 URL is the same. See also objects/info/http-alternates.
82 objects/info/http-alternates
84 This file records URLs to alternate object stores that this object
85 store borrows objects from, to be used when the repository is
86 fetched over HTTP.
87 refs
89 References are stored in subdirectories of this directory. The git
90 prune command knows to preserve objects reachable from refs found
91 in this directory and its subdirectories. This directory is ignored
92 if $GIT_COMMON_DIR is set and "$GIT_COMMON_DIR/refs" will be used
93 instead.
94 refs/heads/name
96 records tip-of-the-tree commit objects of branch name
97 refs/tags/name
99 records any object name (not necessarily a commit object, or a tag
100 object that points at a commit object).
101 refs/remotes/name
103 records tip-of-the-tree commit objects of branches copied from a
104 remote repository.
105 refs/replace/<obj-sha1>
107 records the SHA-1 of the object that replaces <obj-sha1>. This is
108 similar to info/grafts and is internally used and maintained by
109 git-replace(1). Such refs can be exchanged between repositories
110 while grafts are not.
111 packed-refs
113 records the same information as refs/heads/, refs/tags/, and
114 friends record in a more efficient way. See git-pack-refs(1). This
115 file is ignored if $GIT_COMMON_DIR is set and
116 "$GIT_COMMON_DIR/packed-refs" will be used instead.
117 HEAD
119 A symref (see glossary) to the refs/heads/ namespace describing the
120 currently active branch. It does not mean much if the repository is
121 not associated with any working tree (i.e. a bare repository), but
122 a valid Git repository must have the HEAD file; some porcelains may
123 use it to guess the designated "default" branch of the repository
124 (usually master). It is legal if the named branch name does not
125 (yet) exist. In some legacy setups, it is a symbolic link instead
126 of a symref that points at the current branch.
127 HEAD can also record a specific commit directly, instead of being a
129 symref to point at the current branch. Such a state is often called
130 detached HEAD. See git-checkout(1) for details.
131 config
133 Repository specific configuration file. This file is ignored if
134 $GIT_COMMON_DIR is set and "$GIT_COMMON_DIR/config" will be used
135 instead.
136 branches
138 A slightly deprecated way to store shorthands to be used to specify
139 a URL to git fetch, git pull and git push. A file can be stored as
140 branches/<name> and then name can be given to these commands in
141 place of repository argument. See the REMOTES section in git-
142 fetch(1) for details. This mechanism is legacy and not likely to be
143 found in modern repositories. This directory is ignored if
144 $GIT_COMMON_DIR is set and "$GIT_COMMON_DIR/branches" will be used
145 instead.
146 hooks
148 Hooks are customization scripts used by various Git commands. A
149 handful of sample hooks are installed when git init is run, but all
150 of them are disabled by default. To enable, the .sample suffix has
151 to be removed from the filename by renaming. Read githooks(5) for
152 more details about each hook. This directory is ignored if
153 $GIT_COMMON_DIR is set and "$GIT_COMMON_DIR/hooks" will be used
154 instead.
155 index
157 The current index file for the repository. It is usually not found
158 in a bare repository.
159 sharedindex.<SHA-1>
161 The shared index part, to be referenced by $GIT_DIR/index and other
162 temporary index files. Only valid in split index mode.
163 info
165 Additional information about the repository is recorded in this
166 directory. This directory is ignored if $GIT_COMMON_DIR is set and
167 "$GIT_COMMON_DIR/info" will be used instead.
168 info/refs
170 This file helps dumb transports discover what refs are available in
171 this repository. If the repository is published for dumb
172 transports, this file should be regenerated by git
173 update-server-info every time a tag or branch is created or
174 modified. This is normally done from the hooks/update hook, which
175 is run by the git-receive-pack command when you git push into the
176 repository.
177 info/grafts
179 This file records fake commit ancestry information, to pretend the
180 set of parents a commit has is different from how the commit was
181 actually created. One record per line describes a commit and its
182 fake parents by listing their 40-byte hexadecimal object names
183 separated by a space and terminated by a newline.
184 Note that the grafts mechanism is outdated and can lead to problems
186 transferring objects between repositories; see git-replace(1) for a
187 more flexible and robust system to do the same thing.
188 info/exclude
190 This file, by convention among Porcelains, stores the exclude
191 pattern list. .gitignore is the per-directory ignore file. git
192 status, git add, git rm and git clean look at it but the core Git
193 commands do not look at it. See also: gitignore(5).
194 info/attributes
196 Defines which attributes to assign to a path, similar to
197 per-directory .gitattributes files. See also: gitattributes(5).
198 info/sparse-checkout
200 This file stores sparse checkout patterns. See also: git-read-
201 tree(1).
202 remotes
204 Stores shorthands for URL and default refnames for use when
205 interacting with remote repositories via git fetch, git pull and
206 git push commands. See the REMOTES section in git-fetch(1) for
207 details. This mechanism is legacy and not likely to be found in
208 modern repositories. This directory is ignored if $GIT_COMMON_DIR
209 is set and "$GIT_COMMON_DIR/remotes" will be used instead.
210 logs
212 Records of changes made to refs are stored in this directory. See
213 git-update-ref(1) for more information. This directory is ignored
214 if $GIT_COMMON_DIR is set and "$GIT_COMMON_DIR/logs" will be used
215 instead.
216 logs/refs/heads/name
218 Records all changes made to the branch tip named name.
219 logs/refs/tags/name
221 Records all changes made to the tag named name.
222 shallow
224 This is similar to info/grafts but is internally used and
225 maintained by shallow clone mechanism. See --depth option to git-
226 clone(1) and git-fetch(1). This file is ignored if $GIT_COMMON_DIR
227 is set and "$GIT_COMMON_DIR/shallow" will be used instead.
228 commondir
230 If this file exists, $GIT_COMMON_DIR (see git(1)) will be set to
231 the path specified in this file if it is not explicitly set. If the
232 specified path is relative, it is relative to $GIT_DIR. The
233 repository with commondir is incomplete without the repository
234 pointed by "commondir".
235 modules
237 Contains the git-repositories of the submodules.
238 worktrees
240 Contains administrative data for linked working trees. Each
241 subdirectory contains the working tree-related part of a linked
242 working tree. This directory is ignored if $GIT_COMMON_DIR is set,
243 in which case "$GIT_COMMON_DIR/worktrees" will be used instead.
244 worktrees/<id>/gitdir
246 A text file containing the absolute path back to the .git file that
247 points to here. This is used to check if the linked repository has
248 been manually removed and there is no need to keep this directory
249 any more. The mtime of this file should be updated every time the
250 linked repository is accessed.
251 worktrees/<id>/locked
253 If this file exists, the linked working tree may be on a portable
254 device and not available. The presence of this file prevents
255 worktrees/<id> from being pruned either automatically or manually
256 by git worktree prune. The file may contain a string explaining why
257 the repository is locked.
258
260 git-init(1), git-clone(1), git-fetch(1), git-pack-refs(1), git-gc(1),
261 git-checkout(1), gitglossary(7), The Git User’s Manual[1]
262
264 Part of the git(1) suite
265
267 1. The Git User’s Manual
268 file:///usr/share/doc/git/user-manual.html
269Git 2.18.1 05/14/2019 GITREPOSITORY-LAYOU(5)