OS-native file watching
FSEvents on macOS, inotify on Linux, ReadDirectoryChangesW on Windows. Sub-millisecond change detection with kernel-level events — no polling, no battery drain.
Open source · MIT · v0.1.2
Make large Git repositories
feel instant.
gity is a tiny Rust daemon that brings sub-millisecond git status
to monorepos with millions of files — using OS-native file watchers,
Git's fsmonitor v2 protocol,
and a warm cache that survives reboots.
cargo install gity · brew install neul-labs/tap/gity · npm i -g gity-cli
vanilla
git status0 ms
with gity
0 ms
0×faster
Ships everywhere your team already installs things.
- crates.io
- Homebrew
- npm
- PyPI
- .deb
- .pkg
- MSI
- Snap
- Chocolatey
Every release is published with OIDC-based trusted publishing and signed with SLSA-style attestations.
How it works
Four pieces, one fast experience
Git fsmonitor protocol v2
gity speaks Git's own fsmonitor wire protocol, so `git status` only scans the files that actually changed. Works with stock Git 2.37+ — no fork, no patch.
Warm status cache
Status results live in a memory-mapped sled database that survives reboots. Repeated polls — from your shell, your IDE, your CI hook — return in microseconds.
Background `git maintenance`
While you're at lunch, gity runs prefetch, repack, and GC on a scheduler that respects CPU and battery. Your repo stays fast without you scheduling a single cron job.
Watch them race
Same repo. Same command. 340× the wait.
Run gity demo on your own machine to see the race below.
Below is what it looks like on a representative 250k-file monorepo.
~/work/monorepo — gity demo
$ git status # vanilla
8.2 s
$ git status # with gity registered
24 ms
One command to install. One to register.
Pick your package manager.
gity ships everywhere your team already installs things. The same single binary, regardless of how you get it.
cargo install gityRequires a Rust toolchain. Add --features tray for the system tray UI.
$ gity register ~/work/monorepo
$ cd ~/work/monorepo
$ git status # now returns in millisecondsHow gity compares
vs. the alternatives
| Capability | gity | Native fsmonitor | Watchman | Scalar / VFS for Git |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single portable binary | ✓ | needs Watchman or Perl helper | ✓ | Windows-only / large install |
| Cross-platform (macOS / Linux / Windows) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Windows only (ProjFS) |
| Zero-config registration | 1 command | config + helper | config + helper | multi-step setup |
| Background prefetch + maintenance | ✓ | — | — | Scalar only |
| Warm cache shared across worktrees | ✓ | — | — | — |
| User-space (no kernel module) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | kernel VFS (ProjFS) |
| IDE event subscriptions | pub/sub IPC | — | pub/sub | — |
| License | MIT | GPL (Git) | MIT (Meta) | MIT (Microsoft) |
From the blog
Deep dives on Git performance
All articles → cornerstone
Monorepo Git Performance: A Practical Guide
Everything we've learned shipping git tooling for million-file monorepos — what scales, what doesn't, and the order to apply each fix.
cornerstoneGit's `fsmonitor` Protocol v2, Explained
What fsmonitor actually does, how the v2 wire protocol works between Git and a helper, and why it can make `git status` 100× faster without modifying Git itself.
cornerstoneHow to Speed Up `git status` in a Large Monorepo
A practical guide to making git status return in milliseconds, not seconds — covering fsmonitor v2, untrackedCache, partial clones, and when each technique actually helps.
FAQ
Questions devs ask
gity is a small Rust daemon that watches your repo with OS-native file watchers and speaks Git's fsmonitor v2 protocol, so `git status` returns in milliseconds even in monorepos with millions of files.
Git's flags are necessary but insufficient: they speed up status, but they don't watch files in the background, don't cache results across processes, and don't run prefetch or maintenance. gity wraps all of that into one binary with one command.
No. Run `gity register <path>` once. From then on, every `git status`, `git diff`, and IDE call gets accelerated transparently. No alias, no wrapper, no fork of Git.
Yes. The daemon is ~12 MB, idles under 0.1% CPU, and throttles itself when the system is under load. Resource ceilings (memory, file descriptors) are enforced per-repo.
gity does not modify your Git history, does not upload anything to the cloud, and does not require admin privileges. It is a user-space daemon that talks to Git over a documented protocol.
Yes. gity is MIT-licensed, the source is on GitHub, and all distribution channels (crates.io, Homebrew, npm, PyPI, GitHub Releases) are free and use OIDC-based trusted publishing for supply-chain integrity.
Get gity
Try gity on your biggest repo.
One command to install, one to register, and your monorepo starts feeling like a tiny one. MIT-licensed and free to use.