Gity¶

Make large Git repositories feel instant.

Gity is a lightweight, cross-platform daemon that accelerates Git operations on large repositories. A single binary runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows—watching your files, maintaining warm caches, and running background maintenance so git status stays fast even in repos with millions of files.

The Problem¶

In large repositories, everyday Git commands become painfully slow:

$ time git status
# ... 8 seconds later ...
nothing to commit, working tree clean

This happens because Git must scan the entire working tree, check file timestamps, and compare against the index. The larger your repo, the worse it gets.

The Solution¶

Gity runs a background daemon that:

Watches your files — Detects changes instantly via OS-native file watchers
Tells Git what changed — Implements Git's fsmonitor protocol so Git only checks files that actually changed
Keeps objects fresh — Runs git maintenance during idle periods so fetches stay fast
Caches results — Remembers status results and serves them instantly when nothing changed

The result: git status in milliseconds instead of seconds.

Quick Example¶

# Register your large repo (one-time setup)
gity register /path/to/large-repo

# That's it! Git commands are now accelerated
cd /path/to/large-repo
git status  # Fast!

Cross-Platform Support¶

Platform	File Watcher	Status
Linux	inotify	Full support
macOS	FSEvents	Full support
Windows	ReadDirectoryChangesW	Full support
WSL2	inotify (Linux FS only)	See notes

One binary, same features everywhere. No platform-specific configuration needed.

Use Cases¶

Monorepo Development¶

You work in a large monorepo with thousands of packages. Every git status takes 10+ seconds, breaking your flow.

gity register ~/work/monorepo
cd ~/work/monorepo
git status  # Now instant

Multiple Worktrees¶

You have several worktrees of the same repo for parallel feature development.

gity register ~/projects/app
gity register ~/projects/app-feature-x
gity register ~/projects/app-bugfix-y
# Caches are shared between related repos

CI/CD Optimization¶

Your CI builds clone large repos and run status checks. Use oneshot mode:

gity daemon oneshot /path/to/repo
git status
git diff --cached

IDE Integration¶

IDEs constantly poll git status for file decorations. With Gity, these polls return instantly:

# IDE calls this repeatedly
git status --porcelain  # Returns in <10ms with gity

Next Steps¶

Installation — Get Gity running on your system
Quick Start — Accelerate your first repository
How It Works — Understand the architecture

Requirements¶

Git 2.37+ (for fsmonitor protocol v2)
Linux, macOS, or Windows