git-refs(1) — Linux manual page

NAME \| SYNOPSIS \| DESCRIPTION \| COMMANDS \| OPTIONS \| KNOWN LIMITATIONS \| GIT \| COLOPHON

GIT-REFS(1)                     Git Manual                    GIT-REFS(1)

NAME top

       git-refs - Low-level access to refs

SYNOPSIS top

       git refs migrate --ref-format=<format> [--no-reflog] [--dry-run]
       git refs verify [--strict] [--verbose]

DESCRIPTION top

       This command provides low-level access to refs.

COMMANDS top

       migrate
           Migrate ref store between different formats.

       verify
           Verify reference database consistency.

OPTIONS top

       The following options are specific to git refs migrate:

       --ref-format=<format>
           The ref format to migrate the ref store to. Can be one of:

           •   files for loose files with packed-refs. This is the
               default.

           •   reftable for the reftable format. This format is
               experimental and its internals are subject to change.

       --dry-run
           Perform the migration, but do not modify the repository. The
           migrated refs will be written into a separate directory that
           can be inspected separately. The name of the directory will be
           reported on stdout. This can be used to double check that the
           migration works as expected before performing the actual
           migration.

       --reflog, --no-reflog
           Choose between migrating the reflog data to the new backend,
           and discarding them. The default is "--reflog", to migrate.

       The following options are specific to git refs verify:

       --strict
           Enable stricter error checking. This will cause warnings to be
           reported as errors. See git-fsck(1).

       --verbose
           When verifying the reference database consistency, be chatty.

KNOWN LIMITATIONS top

       The ref format migration has several known limitations in its
       current form:

       •   It is not possible to migrate repositories that have
           worktrees.

       •   There is no way to block concurrent writes to the repository
           during an ongoing migration. Concurrent writes can lead to an
           inconsistent migrated state. Users are expected to block
           writes on a higher level. If your repository is registered for
           scheduled maintenance, it is recommended to unregister it
           first with git-maintenance(1).

       These limitations may eventually be lifted.

GIT top

       Part of the git(1) suite

COLOPHON top

       This page is part of the git (Git distributed version control
       system) project.  Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://git-scm.com/⟩.  If you have a bug report for this manual
       page, see ⟨http://git-scm.com/community⟩.  This page was obtained
       from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/git/git.git⟩ on 2025-08-11.  (At that time,
       the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
       repository was 2025-08-07.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
       a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

Git 2.51.0.rc1                  2025-08-07                    GIT-REFS(1)

Pages that refer to this page: git(1), git-fsck(1)