NAME

       git-sparse-checkout - Initialize and modify the sparse-checkout configuration, which
       reduces the checkout to a set of paths given by a list of patterns.

SYNOPSIS

       git sparse-checkout <subcommand> [options]

DESCRIPTION

       Initialize and modify the sparse-checkout configuration, which reduces the checkout to a
       set of paths given by a list of patterns.

       THIS COMMAND IS EXPERIMENTAL. ITS BEHAVIOR, AND THE BEHAVIOR OF OTHER COMMANDS IN THE
       PRESENCE OF SPARSE-CHECKOUTS, WILL LIKELY CHANGE IN THE FUTURE.

COMMANDS

       list
           Describe the patterns in the sparse-checkout file.

       init
           Enable the core.sparseCheckout setting. If the sparse-checkout file does not exist,
           then populate it with patterns that match every file in the root directory and no
           other directories, then will remove all directories tracked by Git. Add patterns to
           the sparse-checkout file to repopulate the working directory.

           To avoid interfering with other worktrees, it first enables the
           extensions.worktreeConfig setting and makes sure to set the core.sparseCheckout
           setting in the worktree-specific config file.

           When --cone is provided, the core.sparseCheckoutCone setting is also set, allowing for
           better performance with a limited set of patterns (see CONE PATTERN SET below).

           Use the --[no-]sparse-index option to toggle the use of the sparse index format. This
           reduces the size of the index to be more closely aligned with your sparse-checkout
           definition. This can have significant performance advantages for commands such as git
           status or git add. This feature is still experimental. Some commands might be slower
           with a sparse index until they are properly integrated with the feature.

           WARNING: Using a sparse index requires modifying the index in a way that is not
           completely understood by external tools. If you have trouble with this compatibility,
           then run git sparse-checkout init --no-sparse-index to rewrite your index to not be
           sparse. Older versions of Git will not understand the sparse directory entries index
           extension and may fail to interact with your repository until it is disabled.

       set
           Write a set of patterns to the sparse-checkout file, as given as a list of arguments
           following the set subcommand. Update the working directory to match the new patterns.
           Enable the core.sparseCheckout config setting if it is not already enabled.

           When the --stdin option is provided, the patterns are read from standard in as a
           newline-delimited list instead of from the arguments.

           When core.sparseCheckoutCone is enabled, the input list is considered a list of
           directories instead of sparse-checkout patterns. The command writes patterns to the
           sparse-checkout file to include all files contained in those directories (recursively)
           as well as files that are siblings of ancestor directories. The input format matches
           the output of git ls-tree --name-only. This includes interpreting pathnames that begin
           with a double quote (") as C-style quoted strings.

       add
           Update the sparse-checkout file to include additional patterns. By default, these
           patterns are read from the command-line arguments, but they can be read from stdin
           using the --stdin option. When core.sparseCheckoutCone is enabled, the given patterns
           are interpreted as directory names as in the set subcommand.

       reapply
           Reapply the sparsity pattern rules to paths in the working tree. Commands like merge
           or rebase can materialize paths to do their work (e.g. in order to show you a
           conflict), and other sparse-checkout commands might fail to sparsify an individual
           file (e.g. because it has unstaged changes or conflicts). In such cases, it can make
           sense to run git sparse-checkout reapply later after cleaning up affected paths (e.g.
           resolving conflicts, undoing or committing changes, etc.).

       disable
           Disable the core.sparseCheckout config setting, and restore the working directory to
           include all files. Leaves the sparse-checkout file intact so a later git
           sparse-checkout init command may return the working directory to the same state.

SPARSE CHECKOUT

       "Sparse checkout" allows populating the working directory sparsely. It uses the
       skip-worktree bit (see git-update-index(1)) to tell Git whether a file in the working
       directory is worth looking at. If the skip-worktree bit is set, then the file is ignored
       in the working directory. Git will not populate the contents of those files, which makes a
       sparse checkout helpful when working in a repository with many files, but only a few are
       important to the current user.

       The $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout file is used to define the skip-worktree reference
       bitmap. When Git updates the working directory, it updates the skip-worktree bits in the
       index based on this file. The files matching the patterns in the file will appear in the
       working directory, and the rest will not.

       To enable the sparse-checkout feature, run git sparse-checkout init to initialize a simple
       sparse-checkout file and enable the core.sparseCheckout config setting. Then, run git
       sparse-checkout set to modify the patterns in the sparse-checkout file.

       To repopulate the working directory with all files, use the git sparse-checkout disable
       command.

FULL PATTERN SET

       By default, the sparse-checkout file uses the same syntax as .gitignore files.

       While $GIT_DIR/info/sparse-checkout is usually used to specify what files are included,
       you can also specify what files are not included, using negative patterns. For example, to
       remove the file unwanted:

           /*
           !unwanted

CONE PATTERN SET

       The full pattern set allows for arbitrary pattern matches and complicated
       inclusion/exclusion rules. These can result in O(N*M) pattern matches when updating the
       index, where N is the number of patterns and M is the number of paths in the index. To
       combat this performance issue, a more restricted pattern set is allowed when
       core.sparseCheckoutCone is enabled.

       The accepted patterns in the cone pattern set are:

        1. Recursive: All paths inside a directory are included.

        2. Parent: All files immediately inside a directory are included.

       In addition to the above two patterns, we also expect that all files in the root directory
       are included. If a recursive pattern is added, then all leading directories are added as
       parent patterns.

       By default, when running git sparse-checkout init, the root directory is added as a parent
       pattern. At this point, the sparse-checkout file contains the following patterns:

           /*
           !/*/

       This says "include everything in root, but nothing two levels below root."

       When in cone mode, the git sparse-checkout set subcommand takes a list of directories
       instead of a list of sparse-checkout patterns. In this mode, the command git
       sparse-checkout set A/B/C sets the directory A/B/C as a recursive pattern, the directories
       A and A/B are added as parent patterns. The resulting sparse-checkout file is now

           /*
           !/*/
           /A/
           !/A/*/
           /A/B/
           !/A/B/*/
           /A/B/C/

       Here, order matters, so the negative patterns are overridden by the positive patterns that
       appear lower in the file.

       If core.sparseCheckoutCone=true, then Git will parse the sparse-checkout file expecting
       patterns of these types. Git will warn if the patterns do not match. If the patterns do
       match the expected format, then Git will use faster hash- based algorithms to compute
       inclusion in the sparse-checkout.

       In the cone mode case, the git sparse-checkout list subcommand will list the directories
       that define the recursive patterns. For the example sparse-checkout file above, the output
       is as follows:

           $ git sparse-checkout list
           A/B/C

       If core.ignoreCase=true, then the pattern-matching algorithm will use a case-insensitive
       check. This corrects for case mismatched filenames in the git sparse-checkout set command
       to reflect the expected cone in the working directory.

       When changing the sparse-checkout patterns in cone mode, Git will inspect each tracked
       directory that is not within the sparse-checkout cone to see if it contains any untracked
       files. If all of those files are ignored due to the .gitignore patterns, then the
       directory will be deleted. If any of the untracked files within that directory is not
       ignored, then no deletions will occur within that directory and a warning message will
       appear. If these files are important, then reset your sparse-checkout definition so they
       are included, use git add and git commit to store them, then remove any remaining files
       manually to ensure Git can behave optimally.

SUBMODULES

       If your repository contains one or more submodules, then submodules are populated based on
       interactions with the git submodule command. Specifically, git submodule init -- <path>
       will ensure the submodule at <path> is present, while git submodule deinit [-f] -- <path>
       will remove the files for the submodule at <path> (including any untracked files,
       uncommitted changes, and unpushed history). Similar to how sparse-checkout removes files
       from the working tree but still leaves entries in the index, deinitialized submodules are
       removed from the working directory but still have an entry in the index.

       Since submodules may have unpushed changes or untracked files, removing them could result
       in data loss. Thus, changing sparse inclusion/exclusion rules will not cause an already
       checked out submodule to be removed from the working copy. Said another way, just as
       checkout will not cause submodules to be automatically removed or initialized even when
       switching between branches that remove or add submodules, using sparse-checkout to reduce
       or expand the scope of "interesting" files will not cause submodules to be automatically
       deinitialized or initialized either.

       Further, the above facts mean that there are multiple reasons that "tracked" files might
       not be present in the working copy: sparsity pattern application from sparse-checkout, and
       submodule initialization state. Thus, commands like git grep that work on tracked files in
       the working copy may return results that are limited by either or both of these
       restrictions.

SEE ALSO

       git-read-tree(1) gitignore(5)

GIT

       Part of the git(1) suite