A drop-in replacement for the git command-line interface, built entirely on top of go-git. This is not intended as a production Git client — its purpose is to validate the go-git library implementation against the official Git CLI by running Git's own test suite against it.

The binary implements Git subcommands (init, commit, push, log, etc.) by translating CLI flags and arguments into go-git library calls. It uses a multicall binary pattern — a single git binary plus git-<command> symlinks — so it can be swapped into Git's test harness transparently.

add, branch, cat-file, checkout, clone, commit, commit-tree, config, fetch, for-each-ref, hash-object, init, log, ls-files, ls-tree, pack-refs, push, read-tree, reflog, remote, reset, rev-parse, show, show-ref, status, switch, symbolic-ref, tag, update-index, update-ref, version, worktree, write-tree

diff, diff-files, diff-index, merge, pull, rm

By default, the build uses a local clone of go-git at ../go-git:

make build

Use the GOGIT variable to build against any go-git fork or branch. This makes it easy to validate changes on a fork before they land upstream.

# Local path (default)
make build GOGIT=../go-git

# Your fork at a branch
make build GOGIT=github.com/Soph/go-git@my-feature-branch

# Build + run the test suite against your fork
make test-cli GOGIT=github.com/Soph/go-git@my-feature-branch

Remote forks are cloned into .gogit-src/ and cached between runs. The replace directive in go.mod is updated to point at the local clone.

The test infrastructure clones upstream Git and runs its shell-based test suite with this binary substituted in:

# Run all test suites
make test-cli

# Run a specific test file
make test-cli T=t0001-init.sh

# Verbose output for a single test
make test-cli-verbose T=t0001-init.sh

Requires an internet connection on first run to clone the upstream Git source (cached in .git-dist/).

• Go 1.24+
• A local clone of go-git at ../go-git, or use GOGIT= to point at a remote fork/branch