Git-Annex

#1

Post by keepamovin » Mon, Aug 25, 2025, 4:18 AM UTC

Git-Annex
git-annex.branchable.com

Re: Git-Annex

#2

Post by EmilStenstrom » Mon, Aug 25, 2025, 5:39 AM UTC

Happy to see use cases front and center in command line documentation. They seem to always start with ”obscure command flag that you’ll probably never use”.

Re: Git-Annex

#3

Post by ygritte » Mon, Aug 25, 2025, 5:40 AM UTC

Could this be abused to simulate something like SVN externals? I always found git submodules to be a very bad replacement for that.

Re: Git-Annex

#4

Post by fragmede » Mon, Aug 25, 2025, 5:40 AM UTC

GitHub really embraced the Microsoft-esque NIH with LFS, instead of adopting git-annex.

Re: Git-Annex

#5

Post by keepamovin » Mon, Aug 25, 2025, 5:46 AM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #4

GitHub really embraced the Microsoft-esque NIH with LFS, instead of adopting git-annex.

To its absolute detriment

Here is a talk by a person who adores it: Yann Büchau: Staying in Control of your Scientific Data with Git Annex https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdRUsn-zB2s

Re: Git-Annex

#6

Post by mathstuf » Mon, Aug 25, 2025, 5:47 AM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #4

GitHub really embraced the Microsoft-esque NIH with LFS, instead of adopting git-annex.

While I also find git-annex more elegant, its cross-platform story is weaker. Note that LFS was originally a collaboration between GitHub and Bitbucket (maybe? Some forge vendor I think). One had the implementation and the other had the name. They met at a Git conference and we have what we have today. My main gripes these days are the woefully inadequate limits GitHub has in place for larger projects. Coupled with the "must have all objects locally to satisfy an arbitrary push", any decently sized developer community will blow the limit fairly quickly.

FD: I have contributed to git-lfs.

Re: Git-Annex

#7

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 25, 2025, 5:59 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Git-Annex

#8

Post by andrewmcwatters » Mon, Aug 25, 2025, 6:02 AM UTC

git-annex has some really awkward documentation.

You can apparently do, sort of, but not really, the same thing git-fetch-file[1] does, with git-annex:

    git fetch-file add https://github.com/icculus/physfs.git "**" lib/physfs-main
    git fetch-file pull

`add` creates this at `.git-remote-files`:

    [file "**"]
    commit = 9d18d36b5a5207b72f473f05e1b2834e347d8144
    target = lib/physfs-main
    repository = https://github.com/icculus/physfs
    branch = main

But git-annex's documentation goes on and on about a bunch of commands I don't really want to read about, whereas those two lines and that .git-remote-files manifest just told you what git-fetch-file does.

[1]: https://github.com/andrewmcwattersandco/git-fetch-file

Re: Git-Annex

#9

Post by nolist_policy » Mon, Aug 25, 2025, 6:06 AM UTC

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #8

git-annex has some really awkward documentation. You can apparently do, sort of, but not really, the same thing git-fetch-file[1] does, with git-annex: git fetch-file add https://github.com/icculus/physfs.git "**" lib/physfs-main git fetch-file pull `add` creates this at `.git-remote-files`: [file "**"] commit = 9d18d36b5a5207b72f473f05e1b2834e347d8144 target = lib/physfs-main repository = https://github.com/icculus/…

Not at all. git-annex is for managing large files in git and unlike git-lfs it preserves the distributed nature of git.

Re: Git-Annex

#10

Post by nolist_policy » Mon, Aug 25, 2025, 6:16 AM UTC

I use git-annex to manage all my data on all my drives. It automatically keeps track of which files are on which drives, it ensures that there are enough copies and it checksums everything. It works perfectly with offline drives.

git-annex can be a bit hard to grasp, so I suggest to create a throw-away repository, following the walkthrough[1] and try things out. See also workflows[2].

[1] https://git-annex.branchable.com/walkthrough/

[2] https://git-annex.branchable.com/workflow/