microsoft/git and the Scalar CLI
This is microsoft/git, a special Git distribution to support monorepo scenarios. If you are not
working in a monorepo, you are likely searching for
Git for Windows instead of this codebase.
In addition to the Git command-line interface (CLI), microsoft/git includes the Scalar CLI to
further enable working with extremely large repositories. Scalar is a tool to apply the latest
recommendations and use the most advanced Git features. You can read
the Scalar CLI documentation or read our
Scalar user guide including
the philosophy of Scalar.
If you encounter problems with microsoft/git, please report them as
GitHub issues.
Why is this fork needed?
Git is awesome - it's a fast, scalable, distributed version control system with an unusually rich command set that provides both high-level operations and full access to internals. What more could you ask for?
Well, because Git is a distributed version control system, each Git repository has a copy of all
files in the entire history. As large repositories, aka monorepos grow, Git can struggle to
manage all that data. As Git commands like status and fetch get slower, developers stop waiting
and start switching context. And context switches harm developer productivity.
microsoft/git is focused on addressing these performance woes and making the monorepo developer
experience first-class. The Scalar CLI packages all of these recommendations into a simple set of
commands.
One major feature that Scalar recommends is partial clone,
which reduces the amount of data transferred in order to work with a Git repository. While several
services such as GitHub support partial clone, Azure Repos instead has an older version of this
functionality called
the GVFS protocol.
The integration with the GVFS protocol present in microsoft/git is not appropriate to include in
the core Git client because partial clone is the official version of that functionality.
Downloading and Installing
If you're working in a monorepo and want to take advantage of the performance boosts in
microsoft/git, then you can download the latest version installer for your OS from the
Releases page. Alternatively, you can opt to install
via the command line, using the below instructions for supported OSes:
Windows
Note: Winget is still in public preview, meaning you currently
need to take special installation steps:
Either manually install the .appxbundle available at the
preview version of App Installer,
or participate in the
Windows Insider flight ring
since winget is available by default on preview versions of Windows.
To install with Winget, run
winget install microsoft/gitDouble-check that you have the right version by running these commands, which should have the same output:
git version
scalar versionTo upgrade microsoft/git, use the following Git command, which will download and install the latest
release.
git update-microsoft-gitYou may also be alerted with a notification to upgrade, which presents a single-click process for
running git update-microsoft-git.
macOS
To install microsoft/git on macOS, first be sure that Homebrew is installed then
install the microsoft-git cask with these steps:
brew tap microsoft/git
brew install --cask microsoft-gitDouble-check that you have the right version by running these commands, which should have the same output:
git version
scalar versionTo upgrade microsoft/git, you can run the necessary brew commands:
brew update
brew upgrade --cask microsoft-gitOr you can run the git update-microsoft-git command, which will run those brew commands for you.
Linux
apt-get support is available for Ubuntu Bionic Beaver (18.04) and Hirsute
Hippo (21.04). Take the following steps to set up and install based on the
version you are running:
Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic)
curl -sSL https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-add-repository https://packages.microsoft.com/ubuntu/18.04/prod
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install microsoft-gitUbuntu 21.04 (Hirsute)
curl -sSL https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/21.04/prod.list | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/microsoft-prod.list
curl -sSL https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/microsoft.asc
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install microsoft-gitOther Ubuntu/Debian distributions
Please use the most recent
.deb package. For example,
you can download a specific version as follows:
wget -O microsoft-git.deb https://github.com/microsoft/git/releases/download/v2.33.0.vfs.0.0/microsoft-git_2.33.0.vfs.0.0.deb
sudo dpkg -i microsoft-git.debDouble-check that you have the right version by running these commands, which should have the same output:
git version
scalar versionNon-Ubuntu/Debian distributions
You will need to compile and install microsoft/git from source:
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/git microsoft-git
cd microsoft-git
make -j12 prefix=/usr/local INCLUDE_SCALAR=YesPlease
sudo make -j12 prefix=/usr/local INCLUDE_SCALAR=YesPlease installFor more assistance building Git from source, see the INSTALL file in the core Git project.
Contributing
This project welcomes contributions and suggestions. Most contributions require you to agree to a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you have the right to, and actually do, grant us the rights to use your contribution. For details, visit https://cla.microsoft.com.
When you submit a pull request, a CLA-bot will automatically determine whether you need to provide a CLA and decorate the PR appropriately (e.g., label, comment). Simply follow the instructions provided by the bot. You will only need to do this once across all repos using our CLA.
This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.