Re: --filter=blob:none in GIT config

From: brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
Date: Apr 3, 2025, 22:44 UTC
Message-ID: <Z-8PV0q5T1KiMpn2@tapette.crustytoothpaste.net>
In-Reply-To: <76775176-b7ee-4361-82a8-70b7d7701ee2@free.fr>

On 2025-04-03 at 20:55:10, Sylvain Fardeau wrote:

Show 13 quoted lines

> Dear GIT team,
> 
> I was wondering if GIT roadmap plans to allow setting clone option
> "--filter=blob:none" as default in GIT configuration?
> 
> Didn't find a way in GITconfig, see :
> 
> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/76770003/is-there-a-way-to-configure-git-to-clone-with-filter-blobnone-by-default
> 
> 
> Would be very useful for developments using binary files :
> 
> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/79550931/cleanup-binary-files-in-git-repository-before-a-given-date

I don't believe we have such an option and I haven't seen one proposed, although I don't follow every series on the list. I can see how there might be some utility for this and I noticed the use of an alias in one of the links you provided, which is currently the way to implement this.

Usually we reserve judgment on a feature until someone has sent patches, since we want to evaluate the implementation of an idea and its impact on the code as well as the idea itself.

I can think about some possible concerns that might come up that a series would need to address, though. For instance, because partial clones effectively require an always-on connection to a server, a user might accidentally make a partial clone when they didn't intend to and then find that the server is down or they're offline (or someplace with really slow Internet, like an airplane) and have a problem. It would also be harder for scripts that assume a standard clone to work around this, especially if they were written for older versions of Git. Some of these concerns would also apply to enabling shallow clones as well, which we also don't presently support as a config option.

So to sum up, I don't think there's anyone who's planned this, but I won't say that it's out of the question that it might happen in the future, though, provided Junio is in agreement.

-- 
brian m. carlson (they/them)
Toronto, Ontario, CA