git-clipboard

Convenience CLI wrappers to cut and paste Git history using git-filter-repo and bundles.

• git-cut: produce a portable bundle containing only selected paths and their full history.
• git-paste: import that bundle into another repository, preserving history and optionally merging.

The heavy lifting is done by git-filter-repo; these commands make common flows feel like a simple clipboard.

Minimal clipboard flow

Copy a couple of paths (with full history) from one repo and paste them into another — no extra flags.

# In a source repo
git-cut fileA dirB

# In a target repo
git-paste

Example output (abbreviated):

/abs/path/.git-clipboard/clip-20250101-120000.bundle
/abs/path/.git-clipboard/clip-20250101-120000.json
Imported branch: clip/clip-20250101-120000
{
	"action": "merge-preview",
	"target": "main",
	"source": "clip/clip-20250101-120000",
	"no_ff": false,
	"squash": false,
	"conflicts": false,
	"allow_unrelated_histories": false,
	"auto_allow_unrelated_histories": false,
	"trailers": false,
	"note": null
}
Auto-merge now? [y/N]: y
Merged clip/clip-20250101-120000 into main

That’s it: cut some paths, paste them, confirm merge if it’s clean. If a merge might conflict (or histories are unrelated), you’ll see a preview and no auto-merge is attempted.

Install

• Requirements: git, git-filter-repo
• macOS: brew install git-filter-repo

Python package (pipx) install for convenience:

pipx install .
# Afterwards the commands git-cut, git-paste, git-clipboard are available on your PATH

git-cut

Create a bundle containing only the specified paths (files/folders) and their history. The source repo is never modified.

Usage

git-cut [PATH ...] [--repo REPO] [--to-subdir DIR] [--out-dir DIR] [--name NAME] [--force]

Key options

• -r/--repo: path to the source repository (default: current dir)
• -t/--to-subdir: re-root the content into a subdirectory inside the clip
• -o/--out-dir: where to write the .bundle and .json (default: ./.git-clipboard)
• -n/--name: base filename for the outputs (default: clip-YYYYmmdd-HHMMSS)
• -f/--force: overwrite existing outputs
• -d/--dry-run: print a JSON plan without creating output files
• --no-follow-renames: by default git-cut follows file renames and includes historical names so history isn’t lost across moves; use this to disable

Outputs

• NAME.bundle: a git bundle with all refs from the filtered repo
• NAME.json: metadata capturing paths, subdir, source remotes, and default branch
• The last clip pointer is also written to ~/.git-clipboard/last for easy pasting without specifying a path.

git-paste

Import a previously created bundle into a target repository. By default it creates a new branch from the bundle and you can choose to merge it.

Usage

git-paste [BUNDLE] [-m META.json] [-r REPO] [-a NAME] [--ref REF] [--list-refs|-L] [-b BRANCH] [--merge|-M|--squash|-s|--rebase|-R] [--no-ff|-F] [--message|-j MSG] [--dry-run|-d] [--allow-unrelated-histories|-U] [--prompt-merge|-p] [--trailers|-T]

Default behavior

• Creates a branch clip/<bundle-base-name> from the bundle's first head
• If --merge/--squash/--rebase is given, merges into the current branch (or --branch)
• Cleans up a temporary remote used for fetching from the bundle
• Merges allow unrelated histories by default (you can still dry-run to preview conflicts first)

Ref selection

• Use --ref to pick a specific ref from the bundle (e.g., --ref main or --ref refs/heads/main).
• If omitted, git-paste tries the metadata default_branch from the clip. If not available, it falls back to the first head in the bundle.

List refs in a bundle

• Use --list-refs (-L) to print all refs in the bundle as JSON and exit.
• If a metadata file is available, default_ref will be included based on the clip’s default_branch.

Example:

git-paste ./clips/clip.bundle --list-refs
# {
#   "action": "list-refs",
#   "bundle": "/abs/path/clips/clip.bundle",
#   "refs": [
#     {"sha": "abc123", "ref": "refs/heads/main"}
#   ],
#   "default_ref": "refs/heads/main"
# }

Clipboard default and obvious mode

• If BUNDLE is omitted, git-paste looks up the last clip pointer at ~/.git-clipboard/last written by git-cut, and uses that bundle.
• If you pass no merge flags, git-paste runs a quick merge preview and, if clean, prompts whether to auto-merge the imported branch into the current (or --branch) target. If conflicts are likely or unknown, it won’t auto-merge.

Example (clipboard + obvious mode):

# In source repo
git-cut path/to/subtree --out-dir ../clips --to-subdir imported

# In target repo, just paste with no args. If clean, confirm to auto-merge.
git-paste

Trailers (provenance in commit messages)

• Use --trailers (-T) to append clip metadata as trailers to merge or squash commit messages.
• Trailers include: Clip-Bundle, Clip-Source (if available), Clip-Paths, Clip-Subdir, Clip-Created-At, Clip-Ref (imported ref), and Clip-Head (SHA of imported branch head).
• Behavior:
  • If you pass --message, trailers are added as an extra paragraph.
  • If you don’t pass --message, for non-squash merges the default merge message is preserved and we amend to append trailers.
  • For squash merges, trailers are appended to the squash commit message.

Example:

git-paste ../clips/clip.bundle --merge --allow-unrelated-histories --message "Import clip" --trailers
# Commit message ends with:
# Clip-Bundle: clip.bundle
# Clip-Source: [email protected]:me/repo.git
# Clip-Paths: proj/a
# Clip-Subdir: imported
# Clip-Created-At: 2025-01-01T12:00:00Z
# Clip-Ref: refs/heads/main
# Clip-Head: abcdef1234567890...

Notes for dry-run

• With --dry-run, paste clones the target repo into a temporary directory, simulates the import and prints a JSON summary, and previews merge conflicts using git merge-tree when possible. The real repo is not modified.
• Real merges allow unrelated histories by default; this is typically what you want for cut/paste between repos.
• Use --prompt-merge to preview conflicts and, if clean, interactively confirm an automatic merge.

Dry-run JSON fields

• import-branch: action, as_branch, source_ref, remote, head, source_summary

  • source_summary now includes: commit_count, top_level_paths (+ totals), file_count, total_size_bytes, largest_files[{path,size}]

• merge-preview: action, target, source, no_ff, squash, conflicts, allow_unrelated_histories, auto_allow_unrelated_histories, trailers, source_summary, diff_summary, note

  • diff_summary: range, files_changed, insertions, deletions, changes_sample (up to 50 items; includes rename tuples)
  • head: SHA of the imported branch tip
  • source_summary: quick provenance of the imported branch
  • commit_count: integer
  • top_level_paths: up to 50 entries from the branch root
    • top_level_paths_total: total entries
    • top_level_paths_truncated: true if truncated

• merge-preview includes:

  • target, source, no_ff, squash, conflicts
  • allow_unrelated_histories, auto_allow_unrelated_histories, trailers
  • source_summary: same shape as above
  • note: reason when merge-base is unknown

Notes and assumptions

• Assumes git-filter-repo is installed and available as either git filter-repo or git-filter-repo.
• git-cut clones your repository into a temp directory, filters there, and never touches your working copy.
• We bundle --all refs after filtering to maximize portability; paste selects the first head by default.
• If you used --to-subdir when cutting, the directory structure is already remapped inside the bundle; paste doesn’t need to move files.
• Merge strategies in paste are standard Git merge/rebase flows; resolve conflicts as usual if they arise.

Examples

Cut history of two folders and paste into another repo under a new branch, then merge:

# from source repo
git-cut dotfiles/.config nvim/ --to-subdir configs --out-dir ../clips

# in target repo
git-paste ../clips/clip-20250101-120000.bundle --dry-run --merge
# If clean, perform the merge (often with unrelated histories allowed):
git-paste ../clips/clip-20250101-120000.bundle --merge --allow-unrelated-histories --message "Import configs"

Try it

Quick smoke test and demo:

# Run the end-to-end test; it prints JSON previews and ends with "E2E OK"
bash ./e2e.sh

Tests

Run the end-to-end test script (creates temporary repos, cuts, dry-runs paste, then imports and merges):

bash ./e2e.sh

Troubleshooting

• If you see git: 'filter-repo' is not a git command, install git-filter-repo.
• Bundles list heads: git bundle list-heads path/to.bundle.
• You can delete the generated branch and retry paste safely; the origin repo is never modified by these tools.

License

MIT