Git Maintenance & Clean-up

The Final command

git remote prune origin && git repack && git prune-packed && git reflog expire --expire=1.month.ago && git gc --aggressive

• git remote prune origin: Removes references to branches that have been deleted on the remote.
• git repack -a -d: Repack all objects and remove redundant packs.
• git prune-packed: Remove objects that are no longer referenced by any pack.
• git reflog expire --expire=1.month.ago --all-ref: Expire reflog entries older than 1 month (for all references).
• git gc --aggressive: Perform aggressive garbage collection to optimize the repository.

add as alias

# System alias from Terminal
alias gitclean="git remote prune origin && git repack && git prune-packed && git reflog expire --expire=1.month.ago && git gc --aggressive"
# Git aliasa
git config --global alias.cleanup '!git remote prune origin && git repack && git prune-packed && git reflog expire --expire=1.month.ago && git gc --aggressive'

Git Maintenance

git maintenance start

modifies .git/config file to add a maintenance.strategy value set to incremental with following values:

• gc: disabled.
• commit-graph: hourly.
• prefetch: hourly.
• loose-objects: daily.
• incremental-repack: daily.

[maintenance]
	auto = false
	strategy = incremental

Refer Scaling monorepo maintenance

Key Git Maintenance Commands

Run Manually

git maintenance run

git gc (Garbage Collection)

Basic Usage:

git gc

–aggressive: Perform a more thorough garbage collection.

git gc --aggressive

–prune=: Remove objects older than the specified date.

git gc --prune=2.weeks.ago

Configure local repo for a daily run

git config --add maintenance.gc true
git config --add maintenance.gc daily

prune

Removes objects that are not reachable from any commit.

git prune
git remote prune origin
git prune --expire=2.weeks.ago #Prune objects older than the specified date

• checks the remote repository (origin or any custom name) for branches that * *no longer exist on the remote**
• and removes the corresponding remote-tracking branches from your local repository.

For branches created on local and pushed to remote,

git checkout -b feature/new-feature-branch
git push --set-upstream origin feature/new-feature-branch

Delete the branch from repo and run git remote prune origin and check the pruned branch on the local

git remote prune origin
Pruning origin
URL: https://github.com/nitinkc/x.git
 * [pruned] origin/feature/new-feature-branch

It doesn’t, however, remove the entry from the config set by --set-upstream

[branch "feature/new-feature-branch"]
	remote = origin
	merge = refs/heads/feature/new-feature-branch

It can be removed with --unset-upstream

git branch --unset-upstream feature/new-feature-branch

repack

Repacks objects to reduce the number of packs and optimize storage.

• Combine objects
• Compress objects
• Remove redundant objects

If repack is used without any options/switch, it performs a repack operation with the default settings

git repack -adf --depth=100
git repack -a -d

• a all objects.
• d Removes unreferenced objects.
• f Forces the repack even (if it doesn’t save space)
• depth=100 Controls the depth of the delta chain used to represent objects.

reflog expire

Expires entries from the reflog to clean up old references.

git reflog expire --expire=2.weeks.ago --all-ref