List of all commands that cause git gc --auto
git, git-gc, msysgit
Solution
builtin/merge.c: const char *argv_gc_auto[] = { "gc", "--auto", NULL };
builtin/receive-pack.c: "gc", "--auto", "--quiet", NULL,
git-am.sh: git gc --auto
git-rebase--interactive.sh: git gc --auto &&
git-svn.perl: command_noisy('gc', '--auto');
From `git grep -- --auto` on git.git, those results looked interesting. The notable one is `builtin/merge.c` meaning that the ever so common `git pull` should trigger a `git gc --auto`.
Additionally, unless your 'non-technical' staff is doing rather 'advanced' stuff (at which point they wouldn't be 'non-technical' anymore), I don't see why they would ever need to run `git gc` manually instead of just letting `git gc --auto` handle everything.
Problem
Is there a definitive list of commands anywhere that cause `git gc --auto` to run? The git-gc(1) man page simply states: --auto With this option, git gc checks whether any housekeeping is required; if not, it exits without performing any work. Some git commands run `git gc --auto` after performing operations that could create many loose objects. (emphasis added) I'm in the process of organising a large migration from SVN to Git. The overwhelming majority of users will be on Windows PCs, and a not-insignificant portion of them are non-technical. They will be using TortoiseGit (as it closely matches TortoiseSVN, which they are already familiar with) - I've noticed that TortoiseGit does not include any functionality to run `git gc` manually at all. The non-technical staff cannot be expected to have to launch a "git bash" command line to run `git gc --auto` from the appropriate working dir; and as we are using the "portable" distribution of MsysGit they will not have the "Git GUI Here.." windows shell context menu shortcut. Is it reasonable to expect that over time Git will mostly self-maintain, or do I need to try and work out a non-technical user friendly method of invoking `git gc --auto`?