Twig

A minimal Git implementation in C++, built from scratch. Twig can initialize repositories, hash and compress objects, build an index, resolve references, and commit — enough to be self-hosting.

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Bootstrapping

One commit in this repository's history was made using Twig itself: docs(readme): add 'Bootstrapping' section

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Commands

Command	Description
init	Initialize a new repository
hash-object	Compute object hash and optionally write to store
cat-file	Print object contents
log	Show commit history
ls-tree	List tree object contents
checkout	Restore working tree from a commit
show-ref	List references
tag	Create a tag
rev-parse	Resolve a revision to an object hash
ls-files	List files tracked in the index
check-ignore	Test whether a path is ignored
status	Show working tree status
rm	Remove a file from the index and working tree
add	Add a file to the index
commit	Record changes to the repository

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Build

Requires g++, make, libssl-dev, and zlib1g-dev.

git clone https://github.com/JourneyCodesAyush/Twig.git
cd twig
make

For a release build:

make release

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Usage

./twig init
./twig add src/main.cpp
./twig status
./twig commit -m "feat(core): initial commit"
./twig log

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Project Structure

twig/
├── include/
│   ├── argparse/argparse.hpp
│   ├── commands/command.hpp
│   ├── errors/error.hpp
│   ├── ignore/ignore.hpp
│   ├── index/index.hpp
│   ├── objects/object.hpp
│   ├── repository/objects.hpp
│   └── utils/utils.hpp
├── src/
│   ├── commands/command.cpp
│   ├── ignore/ignore.cpp
│   ├── index/index.cpp
│   ├── objects/
│   │   ├── blob.cpp
│   │   ├── commit.cpp
│   │   ├── tag.cpp
│   │   └── tree.cpp
│   ├── repository/objects.cpp
│   ├── utils/
│   │   ├── hash.cpp
│   │   ├── deflate.cpp
│   │   ├── io.cpp
│   │   └── fnmatch.cpp
│   └── main.cpp
└── Makefile

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Dependencies

Library	Purpose
OpenSSL (libssl-dev)	SHA-1 hashing for object IDs
zlib (zlib1g-dev)	deflate compression for object storage
<fnmatch.h>	Pattern matching for .gitignore
<sys/stat.h>, st_ctim / st_mtim	File metadata for index freshness checks

The last two are POSIX APIs available on Linux and WSL. Twig does not support macOS or Windows natively.

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Known Limitations

• add accepts individual files only — directory expansion is not implemented.
• add does not check ignore rules.
• Linux and WSL only.
• Directory patterns in .gitignore (e.g. makeBuild/, .vscode/) are not matched correctly — files inside ignored directories are still shown as untracked by status and check-ignore.

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Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please follow these guidelines:

• Fork the repository and create a branch: feat/feature-name or fix/bug-name
• Follow Conventional Commits for commit messages
• Open a pull request with a clear description of your changes

Commit Scopes

Scope	Description
cli	Entry point and argument parsing (main.cpp)
commands	Command implementations
object	Changes to blob, commit, tree, or tag
index	Index read/write logic
ignore	Ignore rule parsing and matching
repository	Repository and object store
utils	Hashing, compression, IO, fnmatch
argparse	Argument parser header
error	Error codes and exception wrapper
docs	Documentation changes
build	Makefile changes

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License

MIT - See LICENSE