From: Karthik Nayak Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2025 14:22:20 GMT Subject: [PATCH 0/5] maintenance: add an 'is-needed' subcommand Message-ID: <20251031-562-add-sub-command-to-check-if-maintenance-is-needed-v1-0-a03d53e28d0e@gmail.com> Hello, I recently raised a patch series [1] to add 'git refs optimize --required' which checks if the reference backend can be optimized, without actually performing the optimization. Back then, we had decided [2] that it would be a better to broaden the approach and add a 'is-needed' subcommand to 'git-maintenance(1)'. This would allow users to check if maintenance was required for the repository and users could also provide a task via the '--task' to check if maintenance was needed for a particular task. Ideally the subcommand will be used with the '--auto' flag which can check the same heuristics as that used with 'git maintenance run --auto'. Future patches can also add support for the '--schedule' flag which can be used to check required schedule it met. However that flag isn't added as part of this series. This series implements that. Commits 1-3 add the required functionality in the refs subsystem to expose an 'optimize_required' field which can be used to check if backends need to be optimized. Commit 4 utilizes this within the 'git-maintenance(1)' code. Commit 5 adds the 'is-needed' subcommand to 'git-maintenance(1)'. This is based on top of master a99f379adf (The 27th batch, 2025-10-30) and is dependent on the following series: - kn/refs-optim-cleanup - ps/ref-peeled-tags Merges cleanly with `next`. I think those two topics are close to being merged to `next` so hopefully this dependency tree doesn't get too complicated. I'll rebase as needed to resolve conflicts. [1]: https://lore.kernel.org/git/20251010-562-add-option-to-check-if-reference-backend-needs-repacking-v1-0-c7962be584fa@gmail.com/ [2]: https://lore.kernel.org/git/CAOLa=ZRdxm787nE4FSr2VUHDB+hW06Ggc6yUcKmeTKAb6B7YOA@mail.gmail.com/ --- Documentation/git-maintenance.adoc | 8 ++++ builtin/gc.c | 86 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----- object.h | 1 - refs.c | 7 ++++ refs.h | 7 ++++ refs/debug.c | 13 ++++++ refs/files-backend.c | 11 +++++ refs/packed-backend.c | 13 ++++++ refs/refs-internal.h | 6 +++ refs/reftable-backend.c | 25 +++++++++++ reftable/reftable-stack.h | 5 +++ reftable/stack.c | 48 ++++++++++++++++----- t/t7900-maintenance.sh | 54 +++++++++++++++++------- t/unit-tests/u-reftable-stack.c | 12 +++++- 14 files changed, 256 insertions(+), 40 deletions(-) Karthik Nayak (5): reftable/stack: return stack segments directly reftable/stack: add function to check if optimization is required refs: add a `optimize_required` field to `struct ref_storage_be` maintenance: add checking logic in `pack_refs_condition()` maintenance: add 'is-needed' subcommand base-commit: edd2018f5db39d68d55a7a4af42375b1a06b9406 change-id: 20251021-562-add-sub-command-to-check-if-maintenance-is-needed-01cae01b4606 Thanks - Karthik