Repo Control

A CLI tool for managing multiple Git repositories at once. Define a workspace with a list of projects and Git servers, then clone, inspect, and update all repos with a single command.

Installation

With Cargo: cargo install repo-control

With Cargo binstall: cargo binstall repo-control

How It Works

Two configuration files are needed. A .repo.json for your local configuration and projects.json to define your projects. Running repo init will create placeholder configurations, if none are found in the directory tree.

Place a .repo.json file in your workspace root to mark it and define used Git servers. Add a projects.json to list the repositories you want to manage. Run repo from anywhere inside the workspace.

The files can be either edited manually or with repo commands.

Configuration

.repo.json

It defines used Git servers (machine-local, not checked in):

{
  "servers": [
    { "alias": "github", "server": "ssh://git@github.com" },
    { "alias": "homelab", "server": "https://homelab.local" }
  ],
  "autoignore": true,
  "autocommit": true
}

autoignore

When a project is added, its local path is appended to .gitignore in the workspace root (skipped if already present). Defaults to false.

autocommit

After a project is added or removed, the changed files are staged and committed in the workspace root repo. Defaults to false.

┌────────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│    Scenario    │ autoignore │ autocommit │                     Result                     │
├────────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ project add    │ false      │ false      │ only projects.json updated (current behaviour) │
├────────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ project add    │ true       │ false      │ projects.json + .gitignore updated, no commit  │
├────────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ project add    │ false      │ true       │ projects.json updated, commit with that file   │
├────────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ project add    │ true       │ true       │ both files updated, commit includes both       │
├────────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ project remove │ —          │ false      │ only projects.json updated (current behaviour) │
├────────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ project remove │ —          │ true       │ projects.json updated, commit with that file   │
└────────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

projects.json

It defines the repositories to manage:

{
  "projects": [
    {
      "name": "projects",
      "git_server_alias": "homelab",
      "git_path": "/myorg/projects.git",
      "path": ""
    },
    {
      "name": "shared-lib",
      "git_server_alias": "github",
      "git_path": "/team/shared-lib.git",
      "path": "team/shared-lib" },
    {
      "name": "my-app",
      "git_server_alias": "homelab",
      "git_path": "/myorg/my-app.git",
      "path": "my-app" },
    {
      "name": "my-other-project",
      "git_server_alias": "homelab",
      "git_path": "/myorg/my-other-project.git",
      "path": "my-other-project"
    }
  ]
}

The path field is relative to the workspace root. A project with path: "" or path: "." is treated as the root project and skipped during clone/init. The master project can contain, for example, the projects.json and a .gitignore among other things.

Commands

repo init

Creates config files if they don't exist, then clones any projects that haven't been checked out yet.

repo init

repo status

Shows the status of all configured repositories in a table.

repo status

┌──────────────────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────┐
│ Project                                  │ Status               │
├──────────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────┤
│ my-app                                   │ CLEAN                │
│ shared-lib                               │ CHANGES              │
│ old-service                              │ BEHIND               │
└──────────────────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────┘

repo fetch

Fetches from remotes for all repositories.

repo fetch

repo update

Fetches from all remotes, then merges updates into each repository (two-phase: fetch-all first, then merge-all).

repo update

repo project

Manages the list of projects in projects.json.

repo project list              # List all configured projects
repo project add               # Add a new project interactively
repo project remove [path]     # Remove a project by local path (prompted if omitted)

repo server

Manages Git server aliases in .repo.json.

repo server list               # List all configured server aliases
repo server add                # Add a new server alias interactively
repo server remove [alias]     # Remove a server alias (prompted if omitted)
repo server edit [alias]       # Edit a server alias and/or URL (prompted if omitted)

repo server edit updates the alias and/or URL of an existing server. Press Enter to keep the current value for either field. If the server URL changed, you will be asked whether to update the origin remote in all affected local repositories automatically.