Git Separated Worktree

by marco.p.v.vezzoli · March 8, 2024

Photo by Erda Estremera on Unsplash Git allows to have separate work tree and repo. This is handy in a number of situations e.g.

managing configuration files into your home directory
any situation where you don’t want anyone or anything mess up your .git directory

bare repositories

git allows to create bare repositories (i.e. directories including only the git files and no working directory) with the following command in an empty directory.
```
git init --bare
```
any repository path which does not end with “/.git” is considered a bare repository.

using the following syntax it is possible to separate the working directory

git clone <repository> --separate-git-dir <git-dir> <work-dir>

looking into work directory we can find a plain text file named .git which contains the following

gitdir: <path/to/repo/dir>

if the directory exists already we can follow this procedure:

create the git repository in a different place e.g.
```
cd ~/my_git_repos/
git init --bare new_repo
```
add a .git file in the existing directory with the following text
gitdir: ~/my_git_repos/new_repo
create a .gitignore file including all files and subdirectories we don’t want to include
add the rest of the files to the index

one specific use case is configuration files in the home directory: this solution comes with a couple of warnings:

The solution can be done with these tips:

move the .git file or rename it when you are not using the repository
leave no bare files in your home directory; always use at least one subdirectory, so you can add it to gitignore