path: root/Documentation/technical/bundle-uri.txt

Bundle URIs
===========

Git bundles are files that store a pack-file along with some extra metadata,
including a set of refs and a (possibly empty) set of necessary commits. See
linkgit:git-bundle[1] and linkgit:gitformat-bundle[5] for more information.

Bundle URIs are locations where Git can download one or more bundles in
order to bootstrap the object database in advance of fetching the remaining
objects from a remote.

One goal is to speed up clones and fetches for users with poor network
connectivity to the origin server. Another benefit is to allow heavy users,
such as CI build farms, to use local resources for the majority of Git data
and thereby reducing the load on the origin server.

To enable the bundle URI feature, users can specify a bundle URI using
command-line options or the origin server can advertise one or more URIs
via a protocol v2 capability.

Design Goals
------------

The bundle URI standard aims to be flexible enough to satisfy multiple
workloads. The bundle provider and the Git client have several choices in
how they create and consume bundle URIs.

* Bundles can have whatever name the server desires. This name could refer
  to immutable data by using a hash of the bundle contents. However, this
  means that a new URI will be needed after every update of the content.
  This might be acceptable if the server is advertising the URI (and the
  server is aware of new bundles being generated) but would not be
  ergonomic for users using the command line option.

* The bundles could be organized specifically for bootstrapping full
  clones, but could also be organized with the intention of bootstrapping
  incremental fetches. The bundle provider must decide on one of several
  organization schemes to minimize client downloads during incremental
  fetches, but the Git client can also choose whether to use bundles for
  either of these operations.

* The bundle provider can choose to support full clones, partial clones,
  or both. The client can detect which bundles are appropriate for the
  repository's partial clone filter, if any.

* The bundle provider can use a single bundle (for clones only), or a
  list of bundles. When using a list of bundles, the provider can specify
  whether or not the client needs _all_ of the bundle URIs for a full
  clone, or if _any_ one of the bundle URIs is sufficient. This allows the
  bundle provider to use different URIs for different geographies.

* The bundle provider can organize the bundles using heuristics, such as
  creation tokens, to help the client prevent downloading bundles it does
  not need. When the bundle provider does not provide these heuristics,
  the client can use optimizations to minimize how much of the data is
  downloaded.

* The bundle provider does not need to be associated with the Git server.
  The client can choose to use the bundle provider without it being
  advertised by the Git server.

* The client can choose to discover bundle providers that are advertised
  by the Git server. This could happen during `git clone`, during
  `git fetch`, both, or neither. The user can choose which combination
  works best for them.

* The client can choose to configure a bundle provider manually at any
  time. The client can also choose to specify a bundle provider manually
  as a command-line option to `git clone`.

Each repository is different and every Git server has different needs.
Hopefully the bundle URI feature is flexible enough to satisfy all needs.
If not, then the feature can be extended through its versioning mechanism.

Server requirements
-------------------

To provide a server-side implementation of bundle servers, no other parts
of the Git protocol are required. This allows server maintainers to use
static content solutions such as CDNs in order to serve the bundle files.

At the current scope of the bundle URI feature, all URIs are expected to
be HTTP(S) URLs where content is downloaded to a local file using a `GET`
request to that URL. The server could include authentication requirements
to those requests with the aim of triggering the configured credential
helper for secure access. (Future extensions could use "file://" URIs or
SSH URIs.)

Assuming a `200 OK` response from the server, the content at the URL is
inspected. First, Git attempts to parse the file as a bundle file of
version 2 or higher. If the file is not a bundle, then the file is parsed
as a plain-text file using Git's config parser. The key-value pairs in
that config file are expected to describe a list of bundle URIs. If
neither of these parse attempts succeed, then Git will report an error to
the user that the bundle URI provided erroneous data.

Any other data provided by the server is considered erroneous.

Bundle Lists
------------

The Git server can advertise bundle URIs using a set of `key=value` pairs.
A bundle URI can also serve a plain-text file in the Git config format
containing these same `key=value` pairs. In both cases, we consider this
to be a _bundle list_. The pairs specify information about the bundles
that the client can use to make decisions for which bundles to download
and which to ignore.

A few keys focus on properties of the list itself.

bundle.version::
	(Required) This value provides a version number for the bundle
	list. If a future Git change enables a feature that needs the Git
	client to react to a new key in the bundle list file, then this version
	will increment. The only current version number is 1, and if any other
	value is specified then Git will fail to use this file.

bundle.mode::
	(Required) This value has one of two values: `all` and `any`. When `all`
	is specified, then the client should expect to need all of the listed
	bundle URIs that match their repository's requirements. When `any` is
	specified, then the client should expect that any one of the bundle URIs
	that match their repository's requirements will suffice. Typically, the
	`any` option is used to list a number of different bundle servers
	located in different geographies.

bundle.heuristic::
	If this string-valued key exists, then the bundle list is designed to
	work well with incremental `git fetch` commands. The heuristic signals
	that there are additional keys available for each bundle that help
	determine which subset of bundles the client should download. The only
	heuristic currently planned is `creationToken`.

The remaining keys include an `<id>` segment which is a server-designated
name for each available bundle. The `<id>` must contain only alphanumeric
and `-` characters.

bundle.<id>.uri::
	(Required) This string value is the URI for downloading bundle `<id>`.
	If the URI begins with a protocol (`http://` or `https://`) then the URI
	is absolute. Otherwise, the URI is interpreted as relative to the URI
	used for the bundle list. If the URI begins with `/`, then that relative
	path is relative to the domain name used for the bundle list. (This use
	of relative paths is intended to make it easier to distribute a set of
	bundles across a large number of servers or CDNs with different domain
	names.)

bundle.<id>.filter::
	This string value represents an object filter that should also appear in
	the header of this bundle. The server uses this value to differentiate
	different kinds of bundles from which the client can choose those that
	match their object filters.

bundle.<id>.creationToken::
	This value is a nonnegative 64-bit integer used for sorting the bundles
	list. This is used to download a subset of bundles during a fetch when
	`bundle.heuristic=creationToken`.

bundle.<id>.location::
	This string value advertises a real-world location from where the bundle
	URI is served. This can be used to present the user with an option for
	which bundle URI to use or simply as an informative indicator of which
	bundle URI was selected by Git. This is only valuable when
	`bundle.mode` is `any`.

Here is an example bundle list using the Git config format:

	[bundle]
		version = 1
		mode = all
		heuristic = creationToken

	[bundle "2022-02-09-1644442601-daily"]
		uri = https://bundles.example.com/git/git/2022-02-09-1644442601-daily.bundle
		creationToken = 1644442601

	[bundle "2022-02-02-1643842562"]
		uri = https://bundles.example.com/git/git/2022-02-02-1643842562.bundle
		creationToken = 1643842562

	[bundle "2022-02-09-1644442631-daily-blobless"]
		uri = 2022-02-09-1644442631-daily-blobless.bundle
		creationToken = 1644442631
		filter = blob:none

	[bundle "2022-02-02-1643842568-blobless"]
		uri = /git/git/2022-02-02-1643842568-blobless.bundle
		creationToken = 1643842568
		filter = blob:none

This example uses `bundle.mode=all` as well as the
`bundle.<id>.creationToken` heuristic. It also uses the `bundle.<id>.filter`
options to present two parallel sets of bundles: one for full clones and
another for blobless partial clones.

Suppose that this bundle list was found at the URI
`https://bundles.example.com/git/git/` and so the two blobless bundles have
the following fully-expanded URIs:

* `https://bundles.example.com/git/git/2022-02-09-1644442631-daily-blobless.bundle`
* `https://bundles.example.com/git/git/2022-02-02-1643842568-blobless.bundle`

Advertising Bundle URIs
-----------------------

If a user knows a bundle URI for the repository they are cloning, then
they can specify that URI manually through a command-line option. However,
a Git host may want to advertise bundle URIs during the clone operation,
helping users unaware of the feature.

The only thing required for this feature is that the server can advertise
one or more bundle URIs. This advertisement takes the form of a new
protocol v2 capability specifically for discovering bundle URIs.

The client could choose an arbitrary bundle URI as an option _or_ select
the URI with best performance by some exploratory checks. It is up to the
bundle provider to decide if having multiple URIs is preferable to a
single URI that is geodistributed through server-side infrastructure.

Cloning with Bundle URIs
------------------------

The primary need for bundle URIs is to speed up clones. The Git client
will interact with bundle URIs according to the following flow:

1. The user specifies a bundle URI with the `--bundle-uri` command-line
   option _or_ the client discovers a bundle list advertised by the
   Git server.

2. If the downloaded data from a bundle URI is a bundle, then the client
   inspects the bundle headers to check that the prerequisite commit OIDs
   are present in the client repository. If some are missing, then the
   client delays unbundling until other bundles have been unbundled,
   making those OIDs present. When all required OIDs are present, the
   client unbundles that data using a refspec. The default refspec is
   `+refs/heads/*:refs/bundles/*`, but this can be configured. These refs
   are stored so that later `git fetch` negotiations can communicate each
   bundled ref as a `have`, reducing the size of the fetch over the Git
   protocol. To allow pruning refs from this ref namespace, Git may
   introduce a numbered namespace (such as `refs/bundles/<i>/*`) such that
   stale bundle refs can be deleted.

3. If the file is instead a bundle list, then the client inspects the
   `bundle.mode` to see if the list is of the `all` or `any` form.

   a. If `bundle.mode=all`, then the client considers all bundle
      URIs. The list is reduced based on the `bundle.<id>.filter` options
      matching the client repository's partial clone filter. Then, all
      bundle URIs are requested. If the `bundle.<id>.creationToken`
      heuristic is provided, then the bundles are downloaded in decreasing
      order by the creation token, stopping when a bundle has all required
      OIDs. The bundles can then be unbundled in increasing creation token
      order. The client stores the latest creation token as a heuristic
      for avoiding future downloads if the bundle list does not advertise
      bundles with larger creation tokens.

   b. If `bundle.mode=any`, then the client can choose any one of the
      bundle URIs to inspect. The client can use a variety of ways to
      choose among these URIs. The client can also fallback to another URI
      if the initial choice fails to return a result.

Note that during a clone we expect that all bundles will be required, and
heuristics such as `bundle.<uri>.creationToken` can be used to download
bundles in chronological order or in parallel.

If a given bundle URI is a bundle list with a `bundle.heuristic`
value, then the client can choose to store that URI as its chosen bundle
URI. The client can then navigate directly to that URI during later `git
fetch` calls.

When downloading bundle URIs, the client can choose to inspect the initial
content before committing to downloading the entire content. This may
provide enough information to determine if the URI is a bundle list or
a bundle. In the case of a bundle, the client may inspect the bundle
header to determine that all advertised tips are already in the client
repository and cancel the remaining download.

Fetching with Bundle URIs
-------------------------

When the client fetches new data, it can decide to fetch from bundle
servers before fetching from the origin remote. This could be done via a
command-line option, but it is more likely useful to use a config value
such as the one specified during the clone.

The fetch operation follows the same procedure to download bundles from a
bundle list (although we do _not_ want to use parallel downloads here). We
expect that the process will end when all prerequisite commit OIDs in a
thin bundle are already in the object database.

When using the `creationToken` heuristic, the client can avoid downloading
any bundles if their creation tokens are not larger than the stored
creation token. After fetching new bundles, Git updates this local
creation token.

If the bundle provider does not provide a heuristic, then the client
should attempt to inspect the bundle headers before downloading the full
bundle data in case the bundle tips already exist in the client
repository.

Error Conditions
----------------

If the Git client discovers something unexpected while downloading
information according to a bundle URI or the bundle list found at that
location, then Git can ignore that data and continue as if it was not
given a bundle URI. The remote Git server is the ultimate source of truth,
not the bundle URI.

Here are a few example error conditions:

* The client fails to connect with a server at the given URI or a connection
  is lost without any chance to recover.

* The client receives a 400-level response (such as `404 Not Found` or
  `401 Not Authorized`). The client should use the credential helper to
  find and provide a credential for the URI, but match the semantics of
  Git's other HTTP protocols in terms of handling specific 400-level
  errors.

* The server reports any other failure response.

* The client receives data that is not parsable as a bundle or bundle list.

* A bundle includes a filter that does not match expectations.

* The client cannot unbundle the bundles because the prerequisite commit OIDs
  are not in the object database and there are no more bundles to download.

There are also situations that could be seen as wasteful, but are not
error conditions:

* The downloaded bundles contain more information than is requested by
  the clone or fetch request. A primary example is if the user requests
  a clone with `--single-branch` but downloads bundles that store every
  reachable commit from all `refs/heads/*` references. This might be
  initially wasteful, but perhaps these objects will become reachable by
  a later ref update that the client cares about.

* A bundle download during a `git fetch` contains objects already in the
  object database. This is probably unavoidable if we are using bundles
  for fetches, since the client will almost always be slightly ahead of
  the bundle servers after performing its "catch-up" fetch to the remote
  server. This extra work is most wasteful when the client is fetching
  much more frequently than the server is computing bundles, such as if
  the client is using hourly prefetches with background maintenance, but
  the server is computing bundles weekly. For this reason, the client
  should not use bundle URIs for fetch unless the server has explicitly
  recommended it through a `bundle.heuristic` value.

Example Bundle Provider organization
------------------------------------

The bundle URI feature is intentionally designed to be flexible to
different ways a bundle provider wants to organize the object data.
However, it can be helpful to have a complete organization model described
here so providers can start from that base.

This example organization is a simplified model of what is used by the
GVFS Cache Servers (see section near the end of this document) which have
been beneficial in speeding up clones and fetches for very large
repositories, although using extra software outside of Git.

The bundle provider deploys servers across multiple geographies. Each
server manages its own bundle set. The server can track a number of Git
repositories, but provides a bundle list for each based on a pattern. For
example, when mirroring a repository at `https://<domain>/<org>/<repo>`
the bundle server could have its bundle list available at
`https://<server-url>/<domain>/<org>/<repo>`. The origin Git server can
list all of these servers under the "any" mode:

	[bundle]
		version = 1
		mode = any

	[bundle "eastus"]
		uri = https://eastus.example.com/<domain>/<org>/<repo>

	[bundle "europe"]
		uri = https://europe.example.com/<domain>/<org>/<repo>

	[bundle "apac"]
		uri = https://apac.example.com/<domain>/<org>/<repo>

This "list of lists" is static and only changes if a bundle server is
added or removed.

Each bundle server manages its own set of bundles. The initial bundle list
contains only a single bundle, containing all of the objects received from
cloning the repository from the origin server. The list uses the
`creationToken` heuristic and a `creationToken` is made for the bundle
based on the server's timestamp.

The bundle server runs regularly-scheduled updates for the bundle list,
such as once a day. During this task, the server fetches the latest
contents from the origin server and generates a bundle containing the
objects reachable from the latest origin refs, but not contained in a
previously-computed bundle. This bundle is added to the list, with care
that the `creationToken` is strictly greater than the previous maximum
`creationToken`.

When the bundle list grows too large, say more than 30 bundles, then the
oldest "_N_ minus 30" bundles are combined into a single bundle. This
bundle's `creationToken` is equal to the maximum `creationToken` among the
merged bundles.

An example bundle list is provided here, although it only has two daily
bundles and not a full list of 30:

	[bundle]
		version = 1
		mode = all
		heuristic = creationToken

	[bundle "2022-02-13-1644770820-daily"]
		uri = https://eastus.example.com/<domain>/<org>/<repo>/2022-02-09-1644770820-daily.bundle
		creationToken = 1644770820

	[bundle "2022-02-09-1644442601-daily"]
		uri = https://eastus.example.com/<domain>/<org>/<repo>/2022-02-09-1644442601-daily.bundle
		creationToken = 1644442601

	[bundle "2022-02-02-1643842562"]
		uri = https://eastus.example.com/<domain>/<org>/<repo>/2022-02-02-1643842562.bundle
		creationToken = 1643842562

To avoid storing and serving object data in perpetuity despite becoming
unreachable in the origin server, this bundle merge can be more careful.
Instead of taking an absolute union of the old bundles, instead the bundle
can be created by looking at the newer bundles and ensuring that their
necessary commits are all available in this merged bundle (or in another
one of the newer bundles). This allows "expiring" object data that is not
being used by new commits in this window of time. That data could be
reintroduced by a later push.

The intention of this data organization has two main goals. First, initial
clones of the repository become faster by downloading precomputed object
data from a closer source. Second, `git fetch` commands can be faster,
especially if the client has not fetched for a few days. However, if a
client does not fetch for 30 days, then the bundle list organization would
cause redownloading a large amount of object data.

One way to make this organization more useful to users who fetch frequently
is to have more frequent bundle creation. For example, bundles could be
created every hour, and then once a day those "hourly" bundles could be
merged into a "daily" bundle. The daily bundles are merged into the
oldest bundle after 30 days.

It is recommended that this bundle strategy is repeated with the `blob:none`
filter if clients of this repository are expecting to use blobless partial
clones. This list of blobless bundles stays in the same list as the full
bundles, but uses the `bundle.<id>.filter` key to separate the two groups.
For very large repositories, the bundle provider may want to _only_ provide
blobless bundles.

Implementation Plan
-------------------

This design document is being submitted on its own as an aspirational
document, with the goal of implementing all of the mentioned client
features over the course of several patch series. Here is a potential
outline for submitting these features:

1. Integrate bundle URIs into `git clone` with a `--bundle-uri` option.
   This will include a new `git fetch --bundle-uri` mode for use as the
   implementation underneath `git clone`. The initial version here will
   expect a single bundle at the given URI.

2. Implement the ability to parse a bundle list from a bundle URI and
   update the `git fetch --bundle-uri` logic to properly distinguish
   between `bundle.mode` options. Specifically design the feature so
   that the config format parsing feeds a list of key-value pairs into the
   bundle list logic.

3. Create the `bundle-uri` protocol v2 command so Git servers can advertise
   bundle URIs using the key-value pairs. Plug into the existing key-value
   input to the bundle list logic. Allow `git clone` to discover these
   bundle URIs and bootstrap the client repository from the bundle data.
   (This choice is an opt-in via a config option and a command-line
   option.)

4. Allow the client to understand the `bundle.heuristic` configuration key
   and the `bundle.<id>.creationToken` heuristic. When `git clone`
   discovers a bundle URI with `bundle.heuristic`, it configures the client
   repository to check that bundle URI during later `git fetch <remote>`
   commands.

5. Allow clients to discover bundle URIs during `git fetch` and configure
   a bundle URI for later fetches if `bundle.heuristic` is set.

6. Implement the "inspect headers" heuristic to reduce data downloads when
   the `bundle.<id>.creationToken` heuristic is not available.

As these features are reviewed, this plan might be updated. We also expect
that new designs will be discovered and implemented as this feature
matures and becomes used in real-world scenarios.

Related Work: Packfile URIs
---------------------------

The Git protocol already has a capability where the Git server can list
a set of URLs along with the packfile response when serving a client
request. The client is then expected to download the packfiles at those
locations in order to have a complete understanding of the response.

This mechanism is used by the Gerrit server (implemented with JGit) and
has been effective at reducing CPU load and improving user performance for
clones.

A major downside to this mechanism is that the origin server needs to know
_exactly_ what is in those packfiles, and the packfiles need to be available
to the user for some time after the server has responded. This coupling
between the origin and the packfile data is difficult to manage.

Further, this implementation is extremely hard to make work with fetches.

Related Work: GVFS Cache Servers
--------------------------------

The GVFS Protocol [2] is a set of HTTP endpoints designed independently of
the Git project before Git's partial clone was created. One feature of this
protocol is the idea of a "cache server" which can be colocated with build
machines or developer offices to transfer Git data without overloading the
central server.

The endpoint that VFS for Git is famous for is the `GET /gvfs/objects/{oid}`
endpoint, which allows downloading an object on-demand. This is a critical
piece of the filesystem virtualization of that product.

However, a more subtle need is the `GET /gvfs/prefetch?lastPackTimestamp=<t>`
endpoint. Given an optional timestamp, the cache server responds with a list
of precomputed packfiles containing the commits and trees that were introduced
in those time intervals.

The cache server computes these "prefetch" packfiles using the following
strategy:

1. Every hour, an "hourly" pack is generated with a given timestamp.
2. Nightly, the previous 24 hourly packs are rolled up into a "daily" pack.
3. Nightly, all prefetch packs more than 30 days old are rolled up into
   one pack.

When a user runs `gvfs clone` or `scalar clone` against a repo with cache
servers, the client requests all prefetch packfiles, which is at most
`24 + 30 + 1` packfiles downloading only commits and trees. The client
then follows with a request to the origin server for the references, and
attempts to checkout that tip reference. (There is an extra endpoint that
helps get all reachable trees from a given commit, in case that commit
was not already in a prefetch packfile.)

During a `git fetch`, a hook requests the prefetch endpoint using the
most-recent timestamp from a previously-downloaded prefetch packfile.
Only the list of packfiles with later timestamps are downloaded. Most
users fetch hourly, so they get at most one hourly prefetch pack. Users
whose machines have been off or otherwise have not fetched in over 30 days
might redownload all prefetch packfiles. This is rare.

It is important to note that the clients always contact the origin server
for the refs advertisement, so the refs are frequently "ahead" of the
prefetched pack data. The missing objects are downloaded on-demand using
the `GET gvfs/objects/{oid}` requests, when needed by a command such as
`git checkout` or `git log`. Some Git optimizations disable checks that
would cause these on-demand downloads to be too aggressive.

See Also
--------

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/RFC-cover-00.13-0000000000-20210805T150534Z-avarab@gmail.com/
    An earlier RFC for a bundle URI feature.

[2] https://github.com/microsoft/VFSForGit/blob/master/Protocol.md
    The GVFS Protocol