git-global

Use git-global to keep track of all the git repositories on your machine.

This is a Rust program that you can install with cargo install git-global. (To obtain cargo and Rust, see https://rustup.rs.) Once installed, you gain an extra git subcommand that you can run from anywhere to check up on all your git repos: git global.

Use git global <subcommand> to:

• git global info: show meta-information about git-global itself (configuration, number of known repos, etc.)
• git global list: show list of all known repos
• git global scan: update the cache of known repos by searching your filesystem
• git global staged: show status of the git index for repos with such changes
• git global stashed: show stashes for all repos that have them
• git global status: show git status -s for all your repos with any changes
• git global unstaged: show status of the working directory for repos with such changes

Command-line flags

In addition to config-file-based options, there are a set of global command-line flags that take precedence:

• --json: Print subcommand results in a JSON format.
• --untracked: Show untracked files in subcommand results, e.g., for the status, staged, and unstaged subcommands.
• --nountracked: Don't show untracked files in subcommand results, e.g., for the status, staged, and unstaged subcommands.

Configuration

To change the default behavior of git-global, you can do so with --- wait for it --- git's global configuration!

To set the root directory for repo discovery to something other than your home directory:

git config --global global.basedir /some/path

To add patterns to exclude while walking directories:

git config --global global.ignore .cargo,.vim,Library

The full list of configuration options supported in the global section of .gitconfig is:

• basedir: The root directory for repo discovery (default: $HOME)
• follow-symlinks: Whether to follow symbolic links during repo discovery (default: true)
• same-filesystem: Whether to stay on the same filesystem as basedir during repo discovery (on Unix or Windows only) (default: true on Windows or Unix, false otherwise)
• ignore: Comma-separated list of patterns to exclude while walking directories (default: none)
• default-cmd: The default subcommand to run if unspecified, i.e., when running git global (default: status)
• show-untracked: Whether to include untracked files in output (default: true)

Ideas

The following are some ideas I've had about future subcommands and features:

• git global dirty: show all repos that have changes of any kind

• git global branched: show all repos not on master (TODO: or a different default branch in .gitconfig)

• git global duplicates: show repos that are checked out to multiple places

• git global remotes: show all remotes (TODO: why? maybe filter by hostname?)

• git global add <path>: add a git repo to the cache that would not be found in a scan

• git global ignore <path>: ignore a git repo and remove it from the cache

• git global ignored: show which git repos are currently being ignored

• git global monitor: launch a daemon to watch git dirs with inotify

• git global pull: pull down changes from default tracking branch for clean repos

• stream results to STDOUT as the come in (from git global status, for example, so we don't have to wait until they're all collected)

• use locate .git if the DB is populated, instead of walking the filesystem

• make a Subcommand trait

• do concurrency generically, not just for the status subcommand

Release Notes

• 0.3.0 (2019-08-04)
  • Add subcommands:
    • staged
    • stashed
    • unstaged
  • Add config options:
    • default-cmd
    • show-untracked
    • follow-symlinks
    • same-filesystem
  • Add command-line flags:
    • --untracked
    • --nountracked
  • Add options to follow symlinks and stay on the same filesystem while scanning directories; both are true by default. (Thanks, pka!)
• 0.2.0 (2019-03-18)
  • Include untracked files in status output.
  • Expand documentation and package metadata.
  • Update and change several dependencies.
  • Add some tests.
  • Several public API changes, such as:
    • Rename GitGlobalConfig to Config.
    • Rename GitGlobalResult to Report.
    • Move get_repos find_repos, and cache_repos functions to Config.
    • Split the core module into config, repo, and report.
  • Merge bug fix for scanning directories when nothing is configured to be ignored (#1).
• 0.1.0 (2017-01-31)
  • Initial release with these subcommands: help, info, list, scan, status.