Gitopolis

Manage multiple git repositories with ease.

• 🤓 -> Run any shell or git command on multiple git repositories.
• 🤓 -> Re-clone all your repos on new machines.
• 🤓 -> Limit actions to custom tags.
• 🤓 -> Easy to remember and use command list (add, exec, clone, tag etc.).
• 🤓 -> A-GPL v3 licensed labour of love ❤️.

To get an idea what a real use might look like take a look at this blog post: "Using Gitopolis to Manage Multiple Git Repositories"

Installation

Download binary release from github

1. Grab the latest release,
2. unzip it
3. put the binary somewhere in your PATH.

I suggest adding a shorter shell alias to save typing. Perhaps gm for git many or gop.

From crates.io

If you're a rust user, you can install from crates.io:

https://crates.io/crates/gitopolis

cargo install gitopolis

This will download the latest release crates.io, build and install it to ~/.cargo/bin/.

Arch linux

Gitopolis is in the AUR, so you can install it with paru or yay or your AUR helper of choice.

paru -S gitopolis

or

yay -S gitopolis

Built in help

gitopolis has a fully documented command system, so use -h to get help for each command:

gitopolis -h
gitopolis clone -h

Initial setup

There are several ways to get started:

1. Add your existing local repos

cd ~/repos/
gitopolis add *

2. Clone new repos

gitopolis clone https://github.com/username/repo1.git

3. Start from an existing gitopolis config

# Decide where to put the repos
mkdir ~/repos/
cd ~/repos/

# Grab a config file from somewhere (maybe a colleage) and add to the folder you'll keep the repos in
wget https://gist.githubusercontent.com/timabell/87add070a8a44db4985586efe380757d/raw/08be5b3c38190eeed4fda0060818fa39f3c67ee3/.gitopolis.toml

# Clone all the repos held in the downloaded config file to the current folder
gitopolis clone

4. Configure many repos from the github or azure-devops api

Take a look at the python scripts at github.com/timabell/cloner

This script can read repo lists from github and azure devops and write them to a gitopolis config file ready for cloning, including some sensible default tags.

Usage

Running shell / git commands in many repos

gitopolis exec -- git pull
gitopolis exec -- git status

Note: Commands executed with exec run in a non-interactive (non-TTY) environment to prevent hanging on prompts or pagers. This means:

• Git commands won't pause for pagers (like less for git log)
• Git will default to no-color output, but you can re-enable it with --color (e.g., gitopolis exec -- git log --color)
• Commands won't prompt for interactive input
• SSH/GPG keys must already be loaded and unlocked in ssh-agent or similar
• Remote SSH host keys must already be accepted (in ~/.ssh/known_hosts)
• The easiest way to ensure keys and hosts are all setup and ready if you run into this problem is to run a single git fetch/clone outside gitopolis first. If this proves to be a regular hassle for new users then we could look at doing something about it so add your experience to issue #236.

Getting output as single lines

For compact, parsable output that's easy to sort and analyze use --oneline, this will put all the output on a single line for each repo (removing newlines).

e.g. to see the latest commit for all the repos, with the most recently touched repo first:

gitopolis exec --oneline -- git log --oneline -n 1

Tagging

When dealing with many git repos, it can be cumbersome and slow to have to run commands on every repo every time, so you can use tags to filter down what's relevant to you in the moment, e.g. backend, my-team, rust or any other way of categorizing you can thing of.

gitopolis tag some_tag repo1 repo2
gitopolis exec -t some_tag -- git pull

Advanced tag filtering with AND/OR logic

You can use multiple tags with powerful AND/OR logic to precisely filter repositories:

• Comma-separated tags (within a single --tag flag) use AND logic: all tags must match
• Multiple --tag flags use OR logic: at least one tag group must match

Examples:

# Match repos with BOTH 'backend' AND 'rust'
gitopolis list --tag backend,rust

# Match repos with (backend AND rust) OR (frontend AND typescript)
gitopolis exec --tag backend,rust --tag frontend,typescript -- git pull

# Clone repos with (production AND critical) OR (staging AND critical)
gitopolis clone --tag production,critical --tag staging,critical

This allows for flexible repository filtering based on combinations of characteristics.

Viewing repository information

Show the recorded information about a specific repository:

$ gitopolis show 0x5.uk

Tags:
  public
  github
  blog
  rust

Remotes:
  origin: [email protected]:timabell/0x5.uk

List all repositories with tags and remote URLs:

gitopolis list --long

List all tags and the repositories they're applied to:

gitopolis tags --long

Moving repositories

Move a repository to a new location and update the configuration:

gitopolis move repo old-path new-path

Managing multiple remotes

Gitopolis supports multiple git remotes per repository. Sync remotes from your git repositories into the .gitopolis.toml file:

gitopolis sync --read-remotes

Sync remotes from .gitopolis.toml back to your git repositories:

gitopolis sync --write-remotes

Note there is no automatic sync, gitopolis will never fiddle with the remotes in the managed repos or its own config unless relevant commands are invoked.

Using complex shell commands

Gitopolis supports executing complex shell commands for each repository - including pipes, redirection, and chaining with && and ||.

To use these features, pass your entire command as a single quoted string to avoid the shell you are using processing them before they get to gitopolis:

gitopolis exec -- 'git status && git pull'
gitopolis exec -- 'git log -1 | grep "feat:"'

You can combine this with normal shell piping/redirection of the entire gitopolis output, e.g.:

gitopolis exec -- 'git log -1 | grep "feat:"' | wc -l

State file

Gitopolis creates and manages all its state in a single simple .gitopolis.toml file in the working directory that you can edit, read, share with others and copy to other machines.

It is stored in TOML format which is a well-supported config markup with parsers for many programming languages.

Here's an example of the contents:

[[repos]]
path = "gitopolis"
tags = ["tim"]
[repos.remotes.origin]
name = "origin"
url = "[email protected]:timabell/gitopolis.git"

[[repos]]
path = "schema-explorer"
tags = ["tim", "databases"]
[repos.remotes.origin]
name = "origin"
url = "[email protected]:timabell/schema-explorer.git"

[[repos]]
path = "database-diagram-scm"
tags = ["databases"]
[repos.remotes.origin]
name = "origin"
url = "[email protected]:timabell/database-diagram-scm.git"

View as gist.

The TOML array format takes a little getting used to, but other than that it's pretty easy to follow and edit by hand, and it allows clean round-trips of data, and is supported in just about every programming language.

The name

Think a metropolis of git repos.

It's a lot to type as a name, but it's nice and unique, and if you use it a lot I suggest you create a shell alias to something shorter.

Why did I create this?

• Wanted to learn more Rust.
• Had a client with many microservices and teams.
• Tried gita but found command layout hard to remember, and didn't like having to install python.
• To help others with their microservices.

More recently I've been adding more features to help with other clients, and enjoying the benefits of high-quality end-to-end tests as I increasingly work with claude code on shipping features considerably more rapidly (though not always more easily lol, crazy LLMs).

Spread the word

If you find this useful, or just think it's cool, please do help spread the word.

• Star the repo
• Tell your friends
• Share your gitopolis config with colleagues and use it to help onboard new developers to your team
• Post on social media, youtube, reddit etc about your experiences, (good or bad), and don't forget to tag me!

Contributing

Suggestions welcome, particularly adding your experience, problems and ideas to the issues list.

I'm happy for people to open issues that are actually just questions and support queries.

Rough internal design and ambitions can be found at Design.md.

PRs are appreciated though it might be best to open an issue first to discuss the design.

Alternatives

Here's the other tools I'm aware of that have more-or-less similar capabilities

• git for-each-repo - new built-in git command for running git commands on many repos
• gita - requires python
• myrepos aka "mr"
• GitKraken - Commercial tool
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/816619/managing-many-git-repositories - stackoverflow question on the same
• gr
• git-repo
• git slave
• mani a TUI (text user interface)
• RepoZ - a Windows GUI tool