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 can optionally install the manpage with git global install-manpage

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 ahead: show repos where branches contain commits that are not present on any of the remotes
• git global info: show meta-information about git-global itself (configuration, number of known repos, etc.)
• git global install-manpage: (non-functional) attempt to install git-global's manpage
• 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)

Manpage generation

An up-to-date copy of the manpage lives in the repository at doc/git-global.1. To generate it from a local clone of the repo, run:

cargo run --bin generate-manpage --features=manpage > doc/git-global.1

Ideas

The following are some ideas 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

• git global cd <fuzzy repo>: change to the directory of the matched repo (#6)

• 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

• 0.6.7 (2025-08-01)
  • Various dependency updates.
• 0.6.6 (2025-02-07)
  • Fix an alignment issue with the --verbose flag's output.
• 0.6.5 (2025-02-07)
  • Add a -v/--verbose flag, so far just used to indicate progress during scan's directory walking. Useful for identifying patterns that should be omitted from scans.
• 0.6.4 (2025-01-01)
  • Various dependency updates.
• 0.6.3 (2024-08-10)
  • Make the ahead subcommand work with corrupted references (#105). Thanks, koalp!
  • Various dependency updates.
• 0.6.2 (2024-06-08)
  • Various dependency updates, including json --> serde_json.
• 0.6.1 (2023-08-10)
  • Various dependency updates.
• 0.6.0 (2023-05-10)
  • Update to Rust 2021 edition.
  • Update, replace, or remove several dependencies.
• 0.5.1 (2022-03-17)
  • Add the generate-manpage binary and (non-functional) install-manpage subcommand.
• 0.5.0 (2021-07-12)
  • Add the ahead subcommand - thanks, koalp!.
• 0.4.1 (2021-06-03)
  • Fix crashes when a cached repo has been deleted.
• 0.4.0 (2021-04-19)
  • Update to Rust 2018 edition (Thanks, koalp!).
  • Replace the dirs and app_dirs crates with directories.
    • Previously created cache files may be ignored after upgrading to this version, so the cache might need to regenerated during the first command run after upgrading to this version. However, we no longer panic if the cache file can't be created.
• 0.3.2 (2020-11-13)
  • Update dependencies.
• 0.3.1 (2020-04-25)
  • Update dependencies.
• 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.