git repo

Newer porcelain-ish helper for repo metadata.

🎯 What & why

git repo is a newer porcelain-ish helper that prints structured repository metadata. It replaces ad-hoc grepping of git config --list and friends.

🧠 Mental model

Think of it as a typed accessor over repo facts: hash algorithm, ref format, bare/shallow/partial state. You ask for atoms, you get values - no parsing.

🛠️ Synopsis

git repo info [--format=<keyvalue|nul>] [<key>...]

Atoms include:
  references.format        # files | reftable
  layout.bare              # true | false
  layout.shallow           # true | false
  object.format            # sha1 | sha256

🎚️ Switches & options

Flag	What it does
`--format=<fmt>`	Output format: keyvalue (default) or nul (NUL-separated)
`info <key>...`	Subcommand: print one or more named info atoms
`references.format`	Atom: ref backend (files vs reftable)
`layout.bare`	Atom: whether the repo is bare
`layout.shallow`	Atom: whether the repo has a shallow boundary
`object.format`	Atom: hash algorithm (sha1/sha256)

📦 Subcommands

info — Print specific repo info atoms

git repo info layout.bare references.format

💡 Use cases

Detect reftable vs files backend before running ref-format-specific tooling.
Check whether a clone is shallow without parsing .git/shallow.
Branch CI logic on bare vs non-bare repositories.
Read hash algorithm in scripts that must support sha256 repos.

🧪 Examples

Check ref backend

git repo info references.format

Multiple atoms

git repo info layout.bare layout.shallow object.format

NUL-separated for scripts

git repo info --format=nul references.format

Replace config grepping

git repo info layout.bare   # vs git config --bool core.bare

🎓 Recommendations

Prefer git repo info over parsing git config or sniffing .git/ files - it is the supported API.
Use --format=nul when keys or values might contain spaces or newlines.

🪤 Common pitfalls

Relatively new (Git 2.46+); older Git versions will not have it - guard with a version check.
The set of atoms is not yet huge; many repo facts still require git config or git rev-parse.

🔗 Related modules

📝 Quiz

Hit each option, then Check answers. Score is recorded; Next is always open.