git-maintenance

Register the current repository in the user's list of repositories to daily have maintenance run

$ git maintenance register

$ git maintenance start

$ git maintenance stop

$ git maintenance unregister

$ git maintenance run --task [commit-graph|gc|incremental-repack|loose-objects|pack-refs|prefetch]

git maintenance <command> [<options>] [<directories>…]

run
    Immediately run one or more maintenance tasks.

--auto
    Run only if a task hasn't run recently (default).

--no-auto
    Ignore scheduling heuristics; run all tasks.

--dry-run
    Print tasks that would run, without executing.

--force
    Run even if recently completed.

--quiet
    Suppress non-error output.

--scheduler={hourly|daily}
    Use specified scheduler for heuristics.

--task=<task>
    Include specific task (e.g., gc, prefetch).

--no-task=<task>
    Skip specific task.

start
    Start maintenance daemon with scheduler.

--daemon
    Fork into background (default for start).

stop
    Stop the maintenance daemon.

register
    Register repository for maintenance scheduling.

--auto
    Register with automatic scheduling.

unregister
    Remove repository from maintenance scheduling.

config
    Get/set maintenance configuration.

git maintenance is a Git command designed to automate and simplify repository maintenance. It performs essential housekeeping tasks like garbage collection (git gc), repacking loose objects, prefetching from remotes, and incremental repacks to keep repositories efficient and space-optimized.

Use git maintenance run for manual execution or git maintenance start to launch a daemon that schedules tasks hourly or daily. It supports registering multiple repositories (~/.git/maintenance/) for background maintenance, reducing manual cron jobs. Tasks run opportunistically to minimize disruption, respecting schedules and recent activity.

Ideal for servers hosting many repos, it improves performance by compressing objects, removing cruft, and pre-fetching data. Avoid on low-resource systems during peak loads.

Tasks can be CPU/I/O intensive; monitor on shared hosts. Daemon requires write access to ~/.git/. Not for bare repos without config.

gc (garbage collect), loose-objects, prefetch, repack (incremental/full), commit-graph, multi-pack-index.

Hourly checks for short tasks; daily for heavy ones like full repack. Configurable via git config maintenance.strategy.

Introduced in Git 2.30 (April 2021) to consolidate scattered maintenance into a unified scheduler, replacing ad-hoc cron scripts for git gc and similar.

git-gc(1), git-repack(1), git-fetch(1), git-fsck(1), cron(8)