Re: [PATCH] worktree: record creation time and free-form note

From: Kristoffer Haugsbakk <kristofferhaugsbakk@fastmail.com>
Date: Jun 5, 2026, 16:50 UTC
Message-ID: <563fd8eb-187e-489b-af15-1551697b8849@app.fastmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <b1b15a47-0842-4a26-9a95-bfdae12799e0@gmail.com>

On Fri, Jun 5, 2026, at 17:17, Phillip Wood wrote:

Show 10 quoted lines

>>[snip]
>> Add per-worktree metadata so users can answer "what is this worktree
>> for, and when did I make it?" without resorting to external notes.
>
> A couple of thoughts related to this
>
> Isn't "what is the worktree for" a property of the branch that's checked
> out, not the worktree itself? We already have
> branch.<branch>.description to add a descritpion to a branch. If you
> have a detached HEAD it is trickier though.

Some worktrees that I have that are not about one branch:

• For building and deploying the code
• For spelunking old versions
• For testing building the code/app with all untracked files deleted
  (“cleanroom”) to compare with my own setup or my coworkers when
  the regular working trees get apparently gummed up
• (for Git) with leak checker
• (for Git) with breaking changes (when testing git-whatchanged(1) I
  think?)

I would also like to (some time) set up a worktree or multiple of them to run tests on each commit.

***

If I would feel like needing a note about these worktrees and it wasn’t supported by git(1)? I guess I would use a per-worktree ref. That would even feel more “Git” than an administrative file, but I guess there are technical reasons for why they are not used for these things.

>[snip]