NAME

       scalar - A tool for managing large Git repositories

SYNOPSIS

       scalar clone [--single-branch] [--branch <main-branch>] [--full-clone]
               [--[no-]src] [--[no-]tags] [--[no-]maintenance] <url> [<enlistment>]
       scalar list
       scalar register [--[no-]maintenance] [<enlistment>]
       scalar unregister [<enlistment>]
       scalar run ( all | config | commit-graph | fetch | loose-objects | pack-files ) [<enlistment>]
       scalar reconfigure [--maintenance=(enable|disable|keep)] [ --all | <enlistment> ]
       scalar diagnose [<enlistment>]
       scalar delete <enlistment>

DESCRIPTION

       Scalar is a repository management tool that optimizes Git for use in large repositories. Scalar improves
       performance by configuring advanced Git settings, maintaining repositories in the background, and helping
       to reduce data sent across the network.

       An important Scalar concept is the enlistment: this is the top-level directory of the project. It usually
       contains the subdirectory src/ which is a Git worktree. This encourages the separation between tracked
       files (inside src/) and untracked files, such as build artifacts (outside src/). When registering an
       existing Git worktree with Scalar whose name is not src, the enlistment will be identical to the
       worktree.

       The scalar command implements various subcommands, and different options depending on the subcommand.
       With the exception of clone, list and reconfigure --all, all subcommands expect to be run in an
       enlistment.

       The following options can be specified before the subcommand:

       -C <directory>
           Before running the subcommand, change the working directory. This option imitates the same option of
           git(1).

       -c <key>=<value>
           For the duration of running the specified subcommand, configure this setting. This option imitates
           the same option of git(1).

COMMANDS

   Clone
       clone [<options>] <url> [<enlistment>]
           Clones the specified repository, similar to git-clone(1). By default, only commit and tree objects
           are cloned. Once finished, the worktree is located at <enlistment>/src.

           The sparse-checkout feature is enabled (except when run with --full-clone) and the only files present
           are those in the top-level directory. Use git sparse-checkout set to expand the set of directories
           you want to see, or git sparse-checkout disable to expand to all files (see git-sparse-checkout(1)
           for more details). You can explore the subdirectories outside your sparse-checkout by using git
           ls-tree HEAD[:<directory>].

       -b <name>, --branch <name>
           Instead of checking out the branch pointed to by the cloned repository’s HEAD, check out the <name>
           branch instead.

       --[no-]single-branch
           Clone only the history leading to the tip of a single branch, either specified by the --branch option
           or the primary branch remote’s HEAD points at.

           Further fetches into the resulting repository will only update the remote-tracking branch for the
           branch this option was used for the initial cloning. If the HEAD at the remote did not point at any
           branch when --single-branch clone was made, no remote-tracking branch is created.

       --[no-]src
           By default, scalar clone places the cloned repository within a <entlistment>/src directory. Use
           --no-src to place the cloned repository directly in the <enlistment> directory.

       --[no-]tags
           By default, scalar clone will fetch the tag objects advertised by the remote and future git fetch
           commands will do the same. Use --no-tags to avoid fetching tags in scalar clone and to configure the
           repository to avoid fetching tags in the future. To fetch tags after cloning with --no-tags, run git
           fetch --tags.

       --[no-]full-clone
           A sparse-checkout is initialized by default. This behavior can be turned off via --full-clone.

       --[no-]maintenance
           By default, scalar clone configures the enlistment to use Git’s background maintenance feature. Use
           the --no-maintenance to skip this configuration.

   List
       list
           List enlistments that are currently registered by Scalar. This subcommand does not need to be run
           inside an enlistment.

   Register
       register [<enlistment>]
           Adds the enlistment’s repository to the list of registered repositories and starts background
           maintenance. If <enlistment> is not provided, then the enlistment associated with the current working
           directory is registered.

           Note: when this subcommand is called in a worktree that is called src/, its parent directory is
           considered to be the Scalar enlistment. If the worktree is not called src/, it itself will be
           considered to be the Scalar enlistment.

       --[no-]maintenance
           By default, scalar register configures the enlistment to use Git’s background maintenance feature.
           Use the --no-maintenance to skip this configuration. This does not disable any maintenance that may
           already be enabled in other ways.

   Unregister
       unregister [<enlistment>]
           Remove the specified repository from the list of repositories registered with Scalar and stop the
           scheduled background maintenance.

   Run
       scalar run ( all | config | commit-graph | fetch | loose-objects | pack-files ) [<enlistment>]
           Run the given maintenance task (or all tasks, if all was specified). Except for all and config, this
           subcommand simply hands off to git-maintenance(1) (mapping fetch to prefetch and pack-files to
           incremental-repack).

           These tasks are run automatically as part of the scheduled maintenance, as soon as the repository is
           registered with Scalar. It should therefore not be necessary to run this subcommand manually.

           The config task is specific to Scalar and configures all those opinionated default settings that make
           Git work more efficiently with large repositories. As this task is run as part of scalar clone
           automatically, explicit invocations of this task are rarely needed.

   Reconfigure
       After a Scalar upgrade, or when the configuration of a Scalar enlistment was somehow corrupted or changed
       by mistake, this subcommand allows to reconfigure the enlistment.

       --all
           When --all is specified, reconfigure all enlistments currently registered with Scalar by the
           scalar.repo config key. Use this option after each upgrade to get the latest features.

       --maintenance=(enable|disable|keep)
           By default, Scalar configures the enlistment to use Git’s background maintenance feature; this is the
           same as using the ‘enable` value for this option. Use the disable value to remove each considered
           enlistment from background maintenance. Use `keep’ to leave the background maintenance configuration
           untouched for these repositories.

   Diagnose
       diagnose [<enlistment>]
           When reporting issues with Scalar, it is often helpful to provide the information gathered by this
           command, including logs and certain statistics describing the data shape of the current enlistment.

           The output of this command is a .zip file that is written into a directory adjacent to the worktree
           in the src directory.

   Delete
       delete <enlistment>
           This subcommand lets you delete an existing Scalar enlistment from your local file system,
           unregistering the repository.

SEE ALSO

       git-clone(1), git-maintenance(1).

GIT

       Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.51.0                                         08/28/2025                                          SCALAR(1)