Re: [Bug] Git subtree regression
- From
- george@mail.dietrich.pub <george@mail.dietrich.pub>
- Date
- Dec 30, 2025, 17:07 UTC
- Message-ID
- <20251230170719.845029-1-george@mail.dietrich.pub>
- In-Reply-To
- <176677910605.6.2281395015810449820.1087545551@dietrich.pub>
--- I explored this more and think I found the root cause. Commit `83f9dad7d6fb5988b68f80b25bd87c68693195dd` changed `should_ignore_subtree_split_commit()` to examine only a commit's own trailers via `git show --format='%(trailers:...)'`. The old code used `git log -1 --grep=...` which had the important side effect of searching through ancestor commits.
In a multi-subtree monorepo with this topology:
```
main: A---B---M---E (B = subtree add --squash for subA)
/
feature: C---D (D = subtree add --squash for subB)
```When splitting `subA`, commits `C` and `D` from the feature branch should be **ignored** because they belong to a branch that only contains `subB`, not `subA`.
## Old behavior (2.51.1)
`git log -1 --grep="git-subtree-dir:"` on commit `C` would traverse ancestors and find `D`'s subtree markers for `subB`, correctly identifying `C` as belonging to another subtree's branch.
## New behavior (2.52.0)
`git show` on commit `C` finds no trailers (regular commits don't have them), so `C` is **not** ignored. This breaks the split because both parents of the merge `M` are processed, but `C` has no cache entry, leading to disconnected history. Thus, split operations produce fewer commits than expected with broken parent chains, breaking push/pull workflows to upstream subtree repositories.
## Reproduction
This can be reproduced via my monorepo: https://github.com/athena-framework/athena
```bash # 2.51.1 produces correct result (matches the number of commits in the `athena-framework/clock` repo) $ git subtree split --prefix="src/components/clock" 4ee66f8198b2532110b75a36575e363ccccff47e # 20 commits, connected to remote
# 2.52.0 produces broken result $ git subtree split --prefix="src/components/clock" 0efb3d9858e3bfee65165508aeeacc50417c9a99 # 7 commits, disconnected
# The commits have identical trees but different parents: $ git cat-file -p 4ee66f8198b2532110b75a36575e363ccccff47e tree 8333b0cbb2a10528f8c803812af7a8e603e70367 parent d72f22f28ca5ed57ef3c2df74f0abd5569ac5934 # Connected to 19-commit history
$ git cat-file -p 0efb3d9858e3bfee65165508aeeacc50417c9a99 tree 8333b0cbb2a10528f8c803812af7a8e603e70367 parent 81c5dbe70ce26a7758fbe7f87b3ce0704043cfb1 # Only 6 commits, disconnected ```