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[PATCH 5/5] builtin/repack: handle promisor packs with geometric repacking

From
Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
Date
Jan 5, 2026, 13:16 UTC
Message-ID
<20260105-pks-geometric-repack-with-promisors-v1-5-c4660573437e@pks.im>
In-Reply-To
<20260105-pks-geometric-repack-with-promisors-v1-0-c4660573437e@pks.im>

When performing a fetch with an object filter, we mark the resulting packfile as a promisor pack. An object part of such a pack may miss any of its referenced objects, and Git knows to handle this case by fetching any such missing objects from the promisor remote.

The "promisor" property needs to be retained going forward. So every time we pack a promisor object, the resulting pack must be marked as a promisor pack. git-repack(1) does this already: when a repository has a promisor remote, it knows to pass "--exclude-promisor-objects" to the git-pack-objects(1) child process. Promisor packs are written separately when doing an all-into-one repack via `repack_promisor_objects()`.

But we don't support promisor objects when doing a geometric repack yet. Promisor packs do not get any special treatment there, as we simply merge promisor and non-promisor packs. The resulting pack is not even marked as a promisor pack, which essentially corrupts the repository.

This corruption couldn't happen in the real world though: we pass both "--exclude-promisor-objects" and "--stdin-packs" to git-pack-objects(1) if a repository has a promisor remote, but as those options are mutually exclusive we always end up dying. And while we made those flags compatible with one another in a preceding commit, we still end up dying in case git-pack-objects(1) is asked to repack a promisor pack.

There's multiple ways to fix this:
  - We can exclude promisor packs from the geometric progression
    altogether. This would have the consequence that we never repack
    promisor packs at all. But in a partial clone it is quite likely
    that the user generates a bunch of promisor packs over time, as
    every backfill fetch would create another one. So this doesn't
    really feel like a sensible option.
  - We can adapt git-pack-objects(1) to support repacking promisor packs
    and include them in the normal geometric progression. But this would
    mean that the set of promisor objects expands over time as the packs
    are merged with normal packs.
  - We can use a separate geometric progression to repack promisor
    packs.

The first two options both have significant downsides, so they aren't really feasible. But the third option fixes both of these downsides: we make sure that promisor packs get merged, and at the same time we never expand the set of promisor objects beyond the set of objects that are already marked as promisor objects.

Implement this strategy so that geometric repacking works in partial clones.

Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
---
 builtin/repack.c            |  3 +++
 repack-geometry.c           | 28 ++++++++++++++++-----
 repack-promisor.c           | 28 +++++++++++++++++++++
 repack.h                    | 10 ++++++++
 t/t7703-repack-geometric.sh | 61 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 5 files changed, 124 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
diff --git a/builtin/repack.c b/builtin/repack.c
index d9012141f6..f6bb04bef7 100644
--- a/builtin/repack.c
+++ b/builtin/repack.c
@@ -332,6 +332,9 @@ int cmd_repack(int argc,
 		    !(pack_everything & PACK_CRUFT))
 			strvec_push(&cmd.args, "--pack-loose-unreachable");
 	} else if (geometry.split_factor) {
+		pack_geometry_repack_promisors(repo, &po_args, &geometry,
+					       &names, packtmp);
+
 		if (midx_must_contain_cruft)
 			strvec_push(&cmd.args, "--stdin-packs");
 		else
diff --git a/repack-geometry.c b/repack-geometry.c
index 0daf545a81..7cebd0cb45 100644
--- a/repack-geometry.c
+++ b/repack-geometry.c
@@ -66,15 +66,25 @@ void pack_geometry_init(struct pack_geometry *geometry,
 		if (p->is_cruft)
 			continue;
 
-		ALLOC_GROW(geometry->pack,
-			   geometry->pack_nr + 1,
-			   geometry->pack_alloc);
-
-		geometry->pack[geometry->pack_nr] = p;
-		geometry->pack_nr++;
+		if (p->pack_promisor) {
+			ALLOC_GROW(geometry->promisor_pack,
+				   geometry->promisor_pack_nr + 1,
+				   geometry->promisor_pack_alloc);
+
+			geometry->promisor_pack[geometry->promisor_pack_nr] = p;
+			geometry->promisor_pack_nr++;
+		} else {
+			ALLOC_GROW(geometry->pack,
+				   geometry->pack_nr + 1,
+				   geometry->pack_alloc);
+
+			geometry->pack[geometry->pack_nr] = p;
+			geometry->pack_nr++;
+		}
 	}
 
 	QSORT(geometry->pack, geometry->pack_nr, pack_geometry_cmp);
+	QSORT(geometry->promisor_pack, geometry->promisor_pack_nr, pack_geometry_cmp);
 	strbuf_release(&buf);
 }
 
@@ -160,6 +170,9 @@ void pack_geometry_split(struct pack_geometry *geometry)
 {
 	geometry->split = compute_pack_geometry_split(geometry->pack, geometry->pack_nr,
 						      geometry->split_factor);
+	geometry->promisor_split = compute_pack_geometry_split(geometry->promisor_pack,
+							       geometry->promisor_pack_nr,
+							       geometry->split_factor);
 }
 
 struct packed_git *pack_geometry_preferred_pack(struct pack_geometry *geometry)
@@ -234,6 +247,8 @@ void pack_geometry_remove_redundant(struct pack_geometry *geometry,
 {
 	remove_redundant_packs(geometry->pack, geometry->split,
 			       names, existing, packdir);
+	remove_redundant_packs(geometry->promisor_pack, geometry->promisor_split,
+			       names, existing, packdir);
 }
 
 void pack_geometry_release(struct pack_geometry *geometry)
@@ -242,4 +257,5 @@ void pack_geometry_release(struct pack_geometry *geometry)
 		return;
 
 	free(geometry->pack);
+	free(geometry->promisor_pack);
 }
diff --git a/repack-promisor.c b/repack-promisor.c
index 125038d92e..73af57bce3 100644
--- a/repack-promisor.c
+++ b/repack-promisor.c
@@ -109,3 +109,31 @@ void repack_promisor_objects(struct repository *repo,
 
 	finish_repacking_promisor_objects(repo, &cmd, names, packtmp);
 }
+
+void pack_geometry_repack_promisors(struct repository *repo,
+				    const struct pack_objects_args *args,
+				    const struct pack_geometry *geometry,
+				    struct string_list *names,
+				    const char *packtmp)
+{
+	struct child_process cmd = CHILD_PROCESS_INIT;
+	FILE *in;
+
+	if (!geometry->promisor_split)
+		return;
+
+	prepare_pack_objects(&cmd, args, packtmp);
+	strvec_push(&cmd.args, "--stdin-packs");
+	cmd.in = -1;
+	if (start_command(&cmd))
+		die(_("could not start pack-objects to repack promisor packs"));
+
+	in = xfdopen(cmd.in, "w");
+	for (size_t i = 0; i < geometry->promisor_split; i++)
+		fprintf(in, "%s\n", pack_basename(geometry->promisor_pack[i]));
+	for (size_t i = geometry->promisor_split; i < geometry->promisor_pack_nr; i++)
+		fprintf(in, "^%s\n", pack_basename(geometry->promisor_pack[i]));
+	fclose(in);
+
+	finish_repacking_promisor_objects(repo, &cmd, names, packtmp);
+}
diff --git a/repack.h b/repack.h
index 3a688a12ee..bc9f2e1a5d 100644
--- a/repack.h
+++ b/repack.h
@@ -103,9 +103,19 @@ struct pack_geometry {
 	uint32_t pack_nr, pack_alloc;
 	uint32_t split;
 
+	struct packed_git **promisor_pack;
+	uint32_t promisor_pack_nr, promisor_pack_alloc;
+	uint32_t promisor_split;
+
 	int split_factor;
 };
 
+void pack_geometry_repack_promisors(struct repository *repo,
+				    const struct pack_objects_args *args,
+				    const struct pack_geometry *geometry,
+				    struct string_list *names,
+				    const char *packtmp);
+
 void pack_geometry_init(struct pack_geometry *geometry,
 			struct existing_packs *existing,
 			const struct pack_objects_args *args);
diff --git a/t/t7703-repack-geometric.sh b/t/t7703-repack-geometric.sh
index 98806cdb6f..04d5d8fc33 100755
--- a/t/t7703-repack-geometric.sh
+++ b/t/t7703-repack-geometric.sh
@@ -480,4 +480,65 @@ test_expect_success '--geometric -l disables writing bitmaps with non-local pack
 	test_path_is_file member/.git/objects/pack/multi-pack-index-*.bitmap
 '
 
+write_packfile () {
+	NR="$1"
+	PREFIX="$2"
+
+	printf "blob\ndata <<EOB\n$PREFIX %s\nEOB\n" $(test_seq $NR) |
+		git fast-import &&
+	git pack-objects --pack-loose-unreachable .git/objects/pack/pack &&
+	git prune-packed
+}
+
+write_promisor_packfile () {
+	PACKFILE=$(write_packfile "$@") &&
+	touch .git/objects/pack/pack-$PACKFILE.promisor &&
+	echo "$PACKFILE"
+}
+
+test_expect_success 'geometric repack works with promisor packs' '
+	test_when_finished "rm -fr repo" &&
+	git init repo &&
+	(
+		cd repo &&
+		git config set maintenance.auto false &&
+		git remote add promisor garbage &&
+		git config set remote.promisor.promisor true &&
+
+		# Packs A and B need to be merged.
+		NORMAL_A=$(write_packfile 2 normal-a) &&
+		NORMAL_B=$(write_packfile 2 normal-b) &&
+		NORMAL_C=$(write_packfile 14 normal-c) &&
+
+		# Packs A, B and C need to be merged.
+		PROMISOR_A=$(write_promisor_packfile 1 promisor-a) &&
+		PROMISOR_B=$(write_promisor_packfile 3 promisor-b) &&
+		PROMISOR_C=$(write_promisor_packfile 3 promisor-c) &&
+		PROMISOR_D=$(write_promisor_packfile 20 promisor-d) &&
+		PROMISOR_E=$(write_promisor_packfile 40 promisor-e) &&
+
+		git cat-file --batch-all-objects --batch-check="%(objectname)" >objects-expect &&
+
+		ls .git/objects/pack/*.pack >packs-before &&
+		test_line_count = 8 packs-before &&
+		git repack --geometric=2 -d &&
+		ls .git/objects/pack/*.pack >packs-after &&
+		test_line_count = 5 packs-after &&
+		test_grep ! "$NORMAL_A" packs-after &&
+		test_grep ! "$NORMAL_B" packs-after &&
+		test_grep "$NORMAL_C" packs-after &&
+		test_grep ! "$PROMISOR_A" packs-after &&
+		test_grep ! "$PROMISOR_B" packs-after &&
+		test_grep ! "$PROMISOR_C" packs-after &&
+		test_grep "$PROMISOR_D" packs-after &&
+		test_grep "$PROMISOR_E" packs-after &&
+
+		ls .git/objects/pack/*.promisor >promisors &&
+		test_line_count = 3 promisors &&
+
+		git cat-file --batch-all-objects --batch-check="%(objectname)" >objects-actual &&
+		test_cmp objects-expect objects-actual
+	)
+'
+
 test_done

-- 
2.52.0.508.g883dcfc63e.dirty
Previous: Taylor BlauNext: Toon Claes
Message 10 of 11 in “builtin/repack: make geometric repacking compatible with promisors”
  1. 0/5 builtin/repack: make geometric repacking compatible with promisorsPatrick Steinhardt, Jan 5, 2026
  2. 1/5 builtin/pack-objects: exclude promisor objects with "--stdin-packs"Patrick Steinhardt, Jan 5, 2026
  3. Taylor BlauJan 9, 2026
  4. Patrick SteinhardtJan 12, 2026
  5. 2/5 repack-geometry: extract function to compute repacking splitPatrick Steinhardt, Jan 5, 2026
  6. Toon ClaesJan 14, 2026
  7. 3/5 repack-promisor: extract function to finalize repackingPatrick Steinhardt, Jan 5, 2026
  8. 4/5 repack-promisor: extract function to remove redundant packsPatrick Steinhardt, Jan 5, 2026
  9. Taylor BlauJan 9, 2026
  10. 5/5 builtin/repack: handle promisor packs with geometric repackingPatrick Steinhardt, Jan 5, 2026
  11. Toon ClaesJan 14, 2026

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