Let me add existing repositories

[gkinsman]

Suggested new feature or improvement

I already have a lot of repositories on my machine, but this tool wants to re-clone them given a URL. I want to be able to add existing folders, and then have this tool detect the remotes etc.

Ideally, I'd be able to add a directory (with optional sub-directories) of folders with git repo's and it would pick them all up

Scenario

I have existing repositories. Make it easy to add them here.

Additional details

No response

[gkinsman]

This is a duplicate of #780 and #779

[bstordrup]

Not a duplicate of #779, but yes, a duplicate of #780

[gkinsman]

Not a duplicate of #779, but yes, a duplicate of #780

It feels like there's a higher level feature here, in which we'd be able to add folders of repo's instead of just repo's directly. My folder setup looks like this:

/projects/personal/projectA
/projects/personal/projectB
/projects/work/projectC

I'd love to be able to add my projects directory, and have all of the nested projects be added. There might need to be some configuration around how deep to search, or folders to exclude to prevent node_modules from being problematic, but the idea is there!

[bstordrup]

Like searching a folder structure for the .git subfolders and importing the repositories with the origin upstream.

[gkinsman]

Yeah! The remotes could be auto detected from the repo so it just needs to detect the folders with some smarts.

[bstordrup]

Any idea where the information about repositories are stored locally?

[gkinsman]

Yep, remotes and tracked branches are in .git/config

[dhoehna]

Thank you so much for filing feedback about the repo tool!

QQ. If the repo tool did find local repos, what would you want it to do with that information? Suggest to clone in the location of existing repos, move your existing repos to a new clone location, something else?

I'm not angry or making a challange, I'm just curious.

[bstordrup]

@dhoehna, if the tool finds a local repo that is already connected to a remote origin, then it indicates strongly that the local repo already is a cloned repository, and hence no need to clone.

What also puzzles me is that even if I did clone a repository that I did not have already cloned, it did clone it as expected. But I cannot in DevHome see any indication of which repositories were cloned. It would be very nice with a list of already cloned repositories in the tool. Otherwise, the value of DevHome would IMO be rather limited.

[bstordrup]

@gkinsman, I was more thinking about where DevHome stores information about which repos have been cloned.

[gkinsman]

Thank you so much for filing feedback about the repo tool!

QQ. If the repo tool did find local repos, what would you want it to do with that information? Suggest to clone in the location of existing repos, move your existing repos to a new clone location, something else?

I'm not angry or making a challange, I'm just curious.

You're right to go high level still - it's worth asking what the ultimate goal of this tool is to define what features might fit and what wouldn't.

Today I use Fork (https://git-fork.com/) to manage my git repos, but maybe Dev Home could one day be a portal to open Fork - who knows! I like the idea of a central place where I can view everything on my machine.

[dhoehna]

I like the idea of a central place where I can view everything on my machine.
Yes. This right here, I think is the essence of all the issues "I want to see my already cloned repos."

[gkinsman]

@gkinsman, I was more thinking about where DevHome stores information about which repos have been cloned.

Ah righto sorry - yeah I have no idea about that - would assume it's some program data location as it's a windows store app 👍

[asklar]

Duplicate of #702