pgit

pgit

A Git-like version control CLI backed by PostgreSQL with pg-xpatch delta compression.

Note: pgit is primarily a demo for pg-xpatch delta compression. It's not intended to replace git—but it is genuinely useful for importing a repo and running SQL analytics on your commit history.

Why pgit?

Import any git repo. Query it with SQL.

pgit init
pgit import /path/to/your/repo --branch main
pgit sql "SELECT ..."

No scripts, no parsing git log output. Just SQL.

-- Which files are always changed together?
SELECT pa.path, pb.path, COUNT(*) as times_together
FROM pgit_file_refs a
JOIN pgit_paths pa ON pa.group_id = a.group_id
JOIN pgit_file_refs b ON a.commit_id = b.commit_id AND a.group_id < b.group_id
JOIN pgit_paths pb ON pb.group_id = b.group_id
GROUP BY pa.path, pb.path
ORDER BY times_together DESC;

Compression: pgit vs git vs fossil

Benchmarked on real repositories (single branch, full history). Comparing packfile vs table data only (excluding indexes for both):

git/git (79,588 commits, 3.8 GB raw content)

pgit is 41% smaller than git with git gc --aggressive, and 84% smaller than fossil.

tokio (4,377 commits, 179 MB raw content)

pgit uses pg-xpatch delta compression with zstd. Compression improves with repository size - larger repos see better results.

Features

• Git-familiar commands: init, add, commit, log, diff, checkout, push, pull, clone
• PostgreSQL as remote: Connection URL is your "remote" - no separate auth system
• SQL queryable: Run arbitrary queries on your entire repo history
• Delta compression: pg-xpatch achieves better compression than git's packfiles (up to 41% smaller)
• Search across history: pgit search "pattern" searches all versions of all files
• Local development: Uses Docker/Podman container for local database
• Import from Git: Migrate existing repositories with full history

Installation

Using Go (recommended)

go install github.com/imgajeed76/pgit/v2/cmd/pgit@latest

From GitHub Releases

Download pre-built binaries from Releases:

• Linux: pgit_*_linux_amd64.tar.gz or pgit_*_linux_arm64.tar.gz
• macOS: pgit_*_darwin_amd64.tar.gz or pgit_*_darwin_arm64.tar.gz
• Windows: pgit_*_windows_amd64.zip

Package Managers

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo dpkg -i pgit_*_linux_amd64.deb

# RHEL/Fedora
sudo rpm -i pgit_*_linux_amd64.rpm

# Alpine
sudo apk add --allow-untrusted pgit_*_linux_amd64.apk

Requirements

• Docker or Podman - Required for the local database container
• PostgreSQL with pg-xpatch - Optional, only needed for remote operations (push/pull/clone)

Quick Start

# Initialize a new repository
pgit init
pgit config user.name "Your Name"
pgit config user.email "you@example.com"

# Basic workflow
pgit add .
pgit commit -m "Initial commit"
pgit log

# Set up remote and sync
pgit remote add origin postgres://user:pass@host/database
pgit push origin

Query Your Repository

pgit stores everything in PostgreSQL, so you can query it directly:

# Built-in search across all history
pgit search "TODO" --path "*.rs"
pgit search --all "panic!" --ignore-case

# Raw SQL access
pgit sql "SELECT * FROM pgit_commits ORDER BY created_at DESC LIMIT 10"

Example Queries

-- Most frequently changed files
SELECT p.path, COUNT(*) as versions
FROM pgit_file_refs r
JOIN pgit_paths p ON p.group_id = r.group_id
GROUP BY p.path
ORDER BY versions DESC
LIMIT 10;

-- File size growth over time
SELECT 
  EXTRACT(YEAR FROM c.created_at)::int as year,
  pg_size_pretty(AVG(LENGTH(ct.content))::bigint) as avg_size
FROM pgit_file_refs r
JOIN pgit_commits c ON r.commit_id = c.id
JOIN pgit_content ct ON ct.group_id = r.group_id AND ct.version_id = r.version_id
GROUP BY EXTRACT(YEAR FROM c.created_at)
ORDER BY year;

Testing Remote Functionality

To test push/pull/clone, you can spin up a pg-xpatch container as your remote:

# Start a pg-xpatch container (creates database 'myproject' automatically)
docker run -d --name pgit-remote \
  -e POSTGRES_USER=pgit \
  -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=pgit \
  -e POSTGRES_DB=myproject \
  -p 5433:5432 \
  ghcr.io/imgajeed76/pg-xpatch:latest

# Add it as a remote and push
pgit remote add origin postgres://pgit:pgit@localhost:5433/myproject
pgit push origin

The database name can be anything you want - just make sure it matches in both the container and the connection URL. pgit will initialize the schema automatically on first push.

Importing from Git

pgit init
pgit import /path/to/git/repo --branch main

Commands

Shell Completions

# Bash
pgit completion bash > /etc/bash_completion.d/pgit

# Zsh
pgit completion zsh > "${fpath[1]}/_pgit"

# Fish
pgit completion fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/pgit.fish

Environment Variables

License

MIT