• gitwatch
  • What to use it for?
  • Installation
    • From Source
      • Update
    • bpkg
    • Archlinux
    • NixOS
      • As Module
      • As Package
    • Docker
      • Docker Compose (Recommended)
      • Using the Dockerfile
  • Requirements
    • Notes for Mac
  • What it does
  • Usage
    • Starting on Boot
      • SysVInit
      • systemd
  • Other Articles
    • On the Gitwatch Wiki
    • Community Articles

A bash script to watch a file or folder and commit changes to a git repo

That's really up to you, but here are some examples:

• config files: some programs auto-write their config files, without waiting for you to click an 'Apply' button; or even if there is such a button, most programs offer you no way of going back to an earlier version of your settings. If you commit your config file(s) to a git repo, you can track changes and go back to older versions. This script makes it convenient, to have all changes recorded automatically.
• document files: if you use an editor that does not have built-in git support (or maybe if you don't like the git support it has), you can use gitwatch to automatically commit your files when you save them, or combine it with the editor's auto-save feature to fully automatically and regularly track your changes
• more stuff! If you have any other uses, or can think of ones, please let us know, and we can add them to this list!

gitwatch can be installed in various ways.

gitwatch can be installed from source by simply cloning the repository and putting the shell script into your $PATH. The commands below will do that for you if /usr/local/bin is in your $PATH. You may need to invoke install with sudo.

git clone https://github.com/gitwatch/gitwatch.git
cd gitwatch
[sudo] install -b gitwatch.sh /usr/local/bin/gitwatch

If you installed gitwatch from source, you can update it by following the exact same steps (or git pull rather than clone if you kept the repository around).

gitwatch can be installed with bpkg. Make sure you have bpkg installed before running the command below. You may need to invoke bpkg with sudo when using the -g flag.

[sudo] bpkg install -g gitwatch/gitwatch

There is an AUR package for Archlinux. Install it with you favorite aur helper.

Starting from NixOS 24.11 this package available in mainline. Additionally, you can use receipts from this repository.

Each watching path should be described in submodule services.gitwatch.* like next:

services.gitwatch.<service name> = {
    enable = true;
    path = "/home/me/my-repo";
    remote = "[email protected]:me/my-repo.git";
    user = "me";
    message = "Auto-commit by gitwatch on %d";
};

This will make NixOS to create systemd service named gitwatch-<service name>. More details you can see at man configuration.nix.

The gitwatch script available as package in nixpkgs;

You can also run gitwatch inside a Docker container. This is useful for isolating dependencies and ensuring a consistent environment.

The easiest way to run gitwatch with Docker is by using the provided docker-compose.yml file.

1. Prerequisites:

• Docker and Docker Compose: Make sure you have both installed.
  • Install Docker
  • Install Docker Compose
• A Git Repository: You need a local directory that is a Git repository you want to watch.
• SSH Key: For pushing to a remote repository, the container needs access to an SSH key that is authorized with your Git provider.

2. Configuration:

The docker-compose.yml file is configured using environment variables. You can either edit the environment section directly in the file or create a .env file in the same directory to set the values.

Here's a breakdown of the important parts of the docker-compose.yml file:

• volumes: This is the most critical section to configure.
  • ./watched-repo:/app/watched-repo: This maps a directory from your computer (the "host") into the container.
    • You must change ./watched-repo to the path of the local Git repository you want gitwatch to monitor.
  • ~/.ssh/id_rsa:/root/.ssh/id_rsa:ro: This securely mounts your SSH private key into the container in read-only mode (ro). This is necessary for gitwatch to push changes to your remote repository.
  • ~/.gitconfig:/root/.gitconfig:ro: This mounts your Git configuration into the container. This ensures that the commits made by gitwatch are attributed to you with the correct name and email.
• environment: This section controls how gitwatch behaves. 3. Environment Variables

The following environment variables are available for configuring the gitwatch container:

4. Running gitwatch:

• Start the container in the background (detached mode):

  docker-compose up -d

• View the logs to see what gitwatch is doing:

  docker-compose logs -f

• Stop the container:

  docker-compose down

If you prefer to build the Docker image yourself, you can use the provided Dockerfile. This is useful if you want to customize the image with additional tools or dependencies.

1. Build the image:

From the root of the gitwatch repository, run:

docker build -t gitwatch .

2. Run the container:

To run the container, you need to provide the same volumes and environment variables as the Docker Compose setup.

docker run -d \
    --name gitwatch \
    -v /path/to/your/repo:/app/watched-repo \
    -v ~/.ssh/id_rsa:/root/.ssh/id_rsa:ro \
    -v ~/.gitconfig:/root/.gitconfig:ro \
    -e GIT_WATCH_DIR="/app/watched-repo" \
    -e GIT_REMOTE="origin" \
    -e GIT_BRANCH="main" \
    gitwatch

Important: Remember to replace /path/to/your/repo with the actual path to the Git repository you want to watch.

To run this script, you must have installed and globally available:

• git (git/git | git-scm)
• inotifywait (part of inotify-tools)

If running on OS X, you'll need to install the following Homebrew tools:

brew install fswatch
brew install coreutils

When you start the script, it prepares some variables and checks if the file or directory given as input really exists.

Then it goes into the main loop (which will run forever, until the script is forcefully stopped/killed), which will:

• watch for changes to the file/directory using inotifywait (inotifywait will block until something happens)
• wait 2 seconds
• case file:
  • cd into the directory containing the file (because git likes to operate locally)
  • git add <file>
  • git commit -m "Scripted auto-commit on change (<date>)"
• case directory:
  • cd into the directory (because git likes to operate locally)
  • git add --all .
  • git commit -m "Scripted auto-commit on change (<date>)"
• if a remote is defined (with -r) do a push after the commit (a specific branch can be selected with -b)

Notes:

• the waiting period of 2 sec is added to allow for several changes to be written out completely before committing; depending on how fast the script is executed, this might otherwise cause race conditions when watching a folder
• currently, folders are always watched recursively

gitwatch.sh [-r <remote> [-b <branch>]] <file or directory to watch>

It is expected that the watched file/directory are already in a git repository (the script will not create a repository). If a folder is being watched, this will be watched fully recursively; this also means that all files and sub-folders added and removed from the directory will always be added and removed in the next commit. The .git folder will be excluded from the inotifywait call so changes to it will not cause unnecessary triggering of the script.

If you have any large files in your repository that are changing frequently, you might wish to ignore them with a .gitignore file.

If you want to have the script auto-started upon boot, the method to do this depends on your operating system and distribution. If you have a GUI dialog to set up startup launches, you might want to use that, so you can more easily find and change the startup script calls later on.

Please also note that if either of the paths involved (script or target) contains spaces or special characters, you need to escape them accordingly; if you don't know how to do that, the internet will help you, or feel free to ask here or contact me directly.

A central place to put startup scripts on Linux is generally /etc/rc.local (to my knowledge; only tested and confirmed on Ubuntu). This file, if it has the +x bit, will be executed upon startup, by the root user account. If you want to start gitwatch from rc.local, the recommended way to call it is:

su -c "/absolute/path/to/script/gitwatch.sh /absolute/path/to/watched/file/or/folder" -l <username> &

The <username> bit should be replaced with your username or that of any other (non-root) user account; it only needs write-access to the git repository of the file/folder you want to watch. The ampersand (&) at the end sends the launched process into the background (this is important if you have other calls in rc.local after the mentioned line, because the gitwatch call does not usually return).

• If installed to a path other than /usr/local/bin/gitwatch, modify [email protected] to suit
• Create dir if it does not exist and copy systemd service file with mkdir -p "$HOME/.config/systemd/user" && cp [email protected] $HOME/.config/systemd/user
• Start and enable the service for a given path by running systemctl --user --now enable gitwatch@$(systemd-escape "'-r url/to/repository' /path/to/folder").service

• How to Install Gitwatch as a Debian Service With supervisord

• How To Use Gitwatch by Maisa Milena
• Syncing and Backing Up Your Thoughts with Obsidian, Syncthing, and Gitwatch by Vinícius Costa