NAME
git-gc - Cleanup unnecessary files and optimize the local repositorySYNOPSIS
git gc [--aggressive] [--auto] [--quiet] [--prune=<date> | --no-prune] [--force] [--keep-largest-pack]
DESCRIPTION
Runs a number of housekeeping tasks within the current repository, such as compressing file revisions (to reduce disk space and increase performance), removing unreachable objects which may have been created from prior invocations of git add, packing refs, pruning reflog, rerere metadata or stale working trees. May also update ancillary indexes such as the commit-graph.OPTIONS
--aggressiveUsually git gc runs very quickly while
providing good disk space utilization and performance. This option will cause
git gc to more aggressively optimize the repository at the expense of
taking much more time. The effects of this optimization are mostly persistent.
See the "AGGRESSIVE" section below for details.
--auto
With this option, git gc checks whether
any housekeeping is required; if not, it exits without performing any work.
See the gc.auto option in the "CONFIGURATION" section below for
how this heuristic works.
Once housekeeping is triggered by exceeding the limits of configuration options
such as gc.auto and gc.autoPackLimit, all other housekeeping
tasks (e.g. rerere, working trees, reflog...) will be performed as well.
--cruft
When expiring unreachable objects, pack them
separately into a cruft pack instead of storing them as loose objects.
--prune=<date>
Prune loose objects older than date (default
is 2 weeks ago, overridable by the config variable gc.pruneExpire).
--prune=now prunes loose objects regardless of their age and increases the
risk of corruption if another process is writing to the repository
concurrently; see "NOTES" below. --prune is on by default.
--no-prune
Do not prune any loose objects.
--quiet
Suppress all progress reports.
--force
Force git gc to run even if there may
be another git gc instance running on this repository.
--keep-largest-pack
All packs except the largest pack and those
marked with a .keep files are consolidated into a single pack. When
this option is used, gc.bigPackThreshold is ignored.
AGGRESSIVE
When the --aggressive option is supplied, git-repack(1) will be invoked with the -f flag, which in turn will pass --no-reuse-delta to git-pack-objects(1). This will throw away any existing deltas and re-compute them, at the expense of spending much more time on the repacking.CONFIGURATION
Everything below this line in this section is selectively included from the git-config(1) documentation. The content is the same as what’s found there: gc.aggressiveDepthThe depth parameter used in the delta
compression algorithm used by git gc --aggressive. This defaults to 50,
which is the default for the --depth option when --aggressive
isn’t in use.
See the documentation for the --depth option in git-repack(1) for
more details.
gc.aggressiveWindow
The window size parameter used in the delta
compression algorithm used by git gc --aggressive. This defaults to
250, which is a much more aggressive window size than the default
--window of 10.
See the documentation for the --window option in git-repack(1) for
more details.
gc.auto
When there are approximately more than this
many loose objects in the repository, git gc --auto will pack them.
Some Porcelain commands use this command to perform a light-weight garbage
collection from time to time. The default value is 6700.
Setting this to 0 disables not only automatic packing based on the number of
loose objects, but any other heuristic git gc --auto will otherwise use
to determine if there’s work to do, such as
gc.autoPackLimit.
gc.autoPackLimit
When there are more than this many packs that
are not marked with *.keep file in the repository, git gc --auto
consolidates them into one larger pack. The default value is 50. Setting this
to 0 disables it. Setting gc.auto to 0 will also disable this.
See the gc.bigPackThreshold configuration variable below. When in use,
it’ll affect how the auto pack limit works.
gc.autoDetach
Make git gc --auto return immediately
and run in background if the system supports it. Default is true.
gc.bigPackThreshold
If non-zero, all packs larger than this limit
are kept when git gc is run. This is very similar to
--keep-largest-pack except that all packs that meet the threshold are
kept, not just the largest pack. Defaults to zero. Common unit suffixes of
k, m, or g are supported.
Note that if the number of kept packs is more than gc.autoPackLimit, this
configuration variable is ignored, all packs except the base pack will be
repacked. After this the number of packs should go below gc.autoPackLimit and
gc.bigPackThreshold should be respected again.
If the amount of memory estimated for git repack to run smoothly is not
available and gc.bigPackThreshold is not set, the largest pack will
also be excluded (this is the equivalent of running git gc with
--keep-largest-pack).
gc.writeCommitGraph
If true, then gc will rewrite the commit-graph
file when is run. When using git gc --auto the
commit-graph will be updated if housekeeping is required. Default is true. See
git-commit-graph(1) for details.
gc.logExpiry
If the file gc.log exists, then git gc
--auto will print its content and exit with status zero instead of running
unless that file is more than gc.logExpiry old. Default is
"1.day". See gc.pruneExpire for more ways to specify its
value.
gc.packRefs
Running git pack-refs in a repository
renders it unclonable by Git versions prior to 1.5.1.2 over dumb transports
such as HTTP. This variable determines whether git gc runs git
pack-refs. This can be set to notbare to enable it within all
non-bare repos or it can be set to a boolean value. The default is
true.
gc.cruftPacks
Store unreachable objects in a cruft pack (see
git-repack(1)) instead of as loose objects. The default is
false.
gc.pruneExpire
When git gc is run, it will call
prune --expire 2.weeks.ago (and repack --cruft --cruft-expiration
2.weeks.ago if using cruft packs via gc.cruftPacks or
--cruft). Override the grace period with this config variable. The
value "now" may be used to disable this grace period and always
prune unreachable objects immediately, or "never" may be used to
suppress pruning. This feature helps prevent corruption when git gc
runs concurrently with another process writing to the repository; see the
"NOTES" section of .
gc.worktreePruneExpire
When git gc is run, it calls git
worktree prune --expire 3.months.ago. This config variable can be used to
set a different grace period. The value "now" may be used to disable
the grace period and prune $GIT_DIR/worktrees immediately, or
"never" may be used to suppress pruning.
gc.reflogExpire, gc.<pattern>.reflogExpire
git reflog expire removes reflog
entries older than this time; defaults to 90 days. The value "now"
expires all entries immediately, and "never" suppresses expiration
altogether. With "<pattern>" (e.g. "refs/stash") in
the middle the setting applies only to the refs that match the
<pattern>.
gc.reflogExpireUnreachable, gc.<pattern>.reflogExpireUnreachable
git reflog expire removes reflog
entries older than this time and are not reachable from the current tip;
defaults to 30 days. The value "now" expires all entries
immediately, and "never" suppresses expiration altogether. With
"<pattern>" (e.g. "refs/stash") in the middle, the
setting applies only to the refs that match the <pattern>.
These types of entries are generally created as a result of using git commit
--amend or git rebase and are the commits prior to the amend or
rebase occurring. Since these changes are not part of the current project most
users will want to expire them sooner, which is why the default is more
aggressive than gc.reflogExpire.
gc.rerereResolved
Records of conflicted merge you resolved
earlier are kept for this many days when git rerere gc is run. You can
also use more human-readable "1.month.ago", etc. The default is 60
days. See git-rerere(1).
gc.rerereUnresolved
Records of conflicted merge you have not
resolved are kept for this many days when git rerere gc is run. You can
also use more human-readable "1.month.ago", etc. The default is 15
days. See git-rerere(1).
NOTES
git gc tries very hard not to delete objects that are referenced anywhere in your repository. In particular, it will keep not only objects referenced by your current set of branches and tags, but also objects referenced by the index, remote-tracking branches, reflogs (which may reference commits in branches that were later amended or rewound), and anything else in the refs/* namespace. Note that a note (of the kind created by git notes) attached to an object does not contribute in keeping the object alive. If you are expecting some objects to be deleted and they aren’t, check all of those locations and decide whether it makes sense in your case to remove those references. 1.Any object with modification time newer
than the --prune date is kept, along with everything reachable from
it.
2.Most operations that add an object to the
database update the modification time of the object if it is already present
so that #1 applies.
HOOKS
The git gc --auto command will run the pre-auto-gc hook. See githooks(5) for more information.SEE ALSO
git-prune(1) git-reflog(1) git-repack(1) git-rerere(1)GIT
Part of the git(1) suite02/28/2023 | Git 2.39.2 |