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IronStorage/docs/git-synchronization.md

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Embedded Git and synchronization

All Git behavior is implemented in crates/storage. IronStorage never launches git, a credential helper, an SSH client, a hook, a filter, or a merge driver. Repositories are opened with isolated configuration and environment access; repository-local configuration that can affect an operation is rejected. Upstream pass git init deliberately writes diff.gpg.binary and a diff.gpg.textconv GnuPG command. IronStorage preserves these passive keys for compatibility but never evaluates them: it reads Git blobs and renders decrypted diffs through Rust storage APIs. Frontends cannot add or change diff drivers. This behavior follows the upstream password-store initialization while keeping runtime helper execution disabled.

GitRepository initializes and opens password-store worktrees, selects the innermost repository for a nested entry, and implements status, log, diff, add, commit, remote, and local-config operations. Successful insert, edit, generate, recipient-policy, remove, move, and copy transactions use the same concrete committer. Only their affected paths are staged, unrelated index state is preserved, no-op mutations create no commit, and commit failures restore the index so the storage transaction can roll back its files.

Remote endpoint contract

Storage parses credential-free HTTPS URLs plus feature-gated ssh:// and scp-like SSH URLs into one typed endpoint contract. Local paths, git://, file://, helper transports, URL rewrites, separate push URLs, embedded credentials, and unknown schemes are rejected before transport. A build without the ssh feature reports SSH as unsupported before connection or repository mutation instead of treating its configuration as malformed.

HTTPS transport

HTTPS credentials are requested with the configured server ID and application ID and remain outside Git configuration. The SSH session, host-verification, authentication, and pack-protocol implementations are separate milestone work; until those layers are present, network operations on SSH endpoints return the typed unsupported-transport result.

Fetch uses the embedded Rust smart-HTTP client with an explicit credential callback, so Git's credential cascade is never entered. Push implements the receive-pack protocol directly: it validates the advertisement, checks the remote tip is an ancestor, creates a complete Git pack with a SHA-1 trailer, requests report-status, and accepts the update only after both unpack and ref status succeed. HTTP redirects are disabled so authorization cannot cross an origin boundary.

Pull refuses a dirty worktree. It fast-forwards when possible and otherwise uses the embedded three-way tree merge. Unresolved paths are returned as typed MergeConflicts; no conflict markers or partial checkout are written. Checkout prevalidates tree entries, rejects links and submodules, writes private files atomically, updates the real Git index, and rolls the worktree/index back if the reference update fails. sync performs pull before push, while clone builds in a private sibling directory and installs the completed vault with a rename.

Commit signing is optional. The embedded OpenPGP key store signs the canonical unsigned commit bytes and adds an ASCII-armored gpgsig header compatible with Git/GPG without invoking gpg.

The smart-HTTP boundary is injectable for deterministic compatibility tests. Tests can inspect credentials, advertisements, receive-pack commands, object counts, pack checksums, non-fast-forward behavior, and server status without a runtime helper or external Git installation.