From: Karthik Nayak Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2026 12:16:36 GMT Subject: Re: [GSoC 2026 Inquiry] Refactoring global state Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <7a95b0f4-8242-4418-bc54-22e81cf40019@gmail.com> Tian Yuchen writes: > Hi Christian, Karthik, Justin.. and Git community, > > My name is Tian Yuchen. I am an undergraduate year 1 student who's new > to the Git community. I've been hanging around the community for over a > month now, contributing almost every day. I really love the vibe here! > Hello Tian, > I'm quite interested in applying for the GSoC project "Refactoring in > order to reduce Git's global state": Happy to hear that. > > Coincidentally, just as the new idea list for this year was released > these past few days, I've been working on a patch that has some > connections to this project. (setup.c: handling named pipes/FIFOs during > git directory discovery, currently in v4). Indeed, based on my > experience, this requires tremendous patience, but I'm more than willing > to give it a try. > > I understand that removing global state is a massive, multi-year effort. > I assume the goal of the GSoC project is not to finish everything, but > to pick a specific area or a set of related modules and migrate them to > use 'struct repository' explicitly. Yup, that's correct, this was also a project a contributor worked on, last year. > > My Question: > > Do you have a specific module or subsystem in mind that you would like > to prioritize for this summer? > > For example, would focusing on 'environment.c' (as mentioned in the idea > list) be the primary target, or are there other areas (like 'config.c' > or 'setup.c') that are currently blocking other major features? > AFAIK We don't have any specific subsystem to focus, albeit some subsystems are tightly coupled and hence can be more complex (e.g. 'setup.c'). So my advice would be to find a good balance, you could also take tips from the patches submitted from the previous year. > I would love to align my proposal with the community's current > priorities. Thanks for your time! > Thanks for checking in, perhaps others on the list have more to say. > Regards, > > Yuchen Karthik