Mini-Git

Mini-Git is a lightweight implementation of a Git-like version control system in Python. It allows you to initialize a repository, create commits, and checkout previous commits using SHA-256 based object storage.

---

Goal

This project is only intended as a learning exercise to explore how Git works internally. This is missing a lot of features and optimizations that Git supports, and thus is not meant to be used as a substitute for Git. However, if you insist, give it a try for sure!

---

Installation

Clone this repository to your local machine:

git clone https://github.com/UniquePython/minigit.git
cd minigit

No external dependencies are required beyond the Python standard library.

---

Usage

The CLI interface provides the following commands:

• init
• commit
• checkout
• log
• cat-file

Initialize a repository

python main.py init -d <directory> --name "Your Name" --email "you@example.com"

• -d or --directory: Directory to initialize the repository (default: current directory)

• --name: Author/committer name

• --email: Author/committer email

Commit changes

python main.py commit -m "Commit message" -d <directory>

• -m or --message: Commit message (required)

• -d or --directory: Directory to commit (default: current directory)

Checkout a commit

python main.py checkout <commit_id> -d <directory>

• <commit_id>: SHA-256 hash of the commit to restore

• -d or --directory: Directory to restore files into (default: current directory)

Log commit history

python main.py log

Cat-file

python main.py cat-file <object-id>

• <object-id>: SHA-256 hash of the object to view the contents of

---

File Structure

• blob.py – Handles object hashing, storage, and retrieval.

• tree_entry.py – Dataclass representing a tree entry (file or directory).

• tree.py – Creates and reads tree objects representing directories.

• config.py – Reads username/email configuration.

• commit.py – Creates and reads commit objects.

• log.py - Displays the commit history of the current repository.

• cat_file.py - Displays the contents of a stored object.

• checkout.py – Restores the working directory to a specific commit.

• init.py – Initializes a new repository and stores configuration.

• main.py – Command-line interface to interact with the repository.

---

Coming soon ...

• Branch Refs
• Detached HEAD vs symbolic HEAD
• Diffing trees
• Partial checkouts
• Packfiles
• Executable version so that you can run it as a standalone program
• Test suite (eventually 😅)

---

License

MIT License