man > GIT-FSMONITOR--DAEMON(1)

GIT-FSMONITOR--DAEMON(1)                     Git Manual                     GIT-FSMONITOR--DAEMON(1)

NAME
       git-fsmonitor--daemon - A Built-in Filesystem Monitor

SYNOPSIS
       git fsmonitor--daemon start
       git fsmonitor--daemon run
       git fsmonitor--daemon stop
       git fsmonitor--daemon status


DESCRIPTION
       A daemon to watch the working directory for file and directory changes using
       platform-specific filesystem notification facilities.

       This daemon communicates directly with commands like git status using the simple IPC[1]
       interface instead of the slower githooks(5) interface.

       This daemon is built into Git so that no third-party tools are required.

OPTIONS
       start
           Starts a daemon in the background.

       run
           Runs a daemon in the foreground.

       stop
           Stops the daemon running in the current working directory, if present.

       status
           Exits with zero status if a daemon is watching the current working directory.

REMARKS
       This daemon is a long running process used to watch a single working directory and maintain a
       list of the recently changed files and directories. Performance of commands such as git
       status can be increased if they just ask for a summary of changes to the working directory
       and can avoid scanning the disk.

       When core.fsmonitor is set to true (see git-config(1)) commands, such as git status, will ask
       the daemon for changes and automatically start it (if necessary).

       For more information see the "File System Monitor" section in git-update-index(1).

CAVEATS
       The fsmonitor daemon does not currently know about submodules and does not know to filter out
       filesystem events that happen within a submodule. If fsmonitor daemon is watching a super
       repo and a file is modified within the working directory of a submodule, it will report the
       change (as happening against the super repo). However, the client will properly ignore these
       extra events, so performance may be affected but it will not cause an incorrect result.

       By default, the fsmonitor daemon refuses to work with network-mounted repositories; this may
       be overridden by setting fsmonitor.allowRemote to true. Note, however, that the fsmonitor
       daemon is not guaranteed to work correctly with all network-mounted repositories, so such use
       is considered experimental.

       On Mac OS, the inter-process communication (IPC) between various Git commands and the
       fsmonitor daemon is done via a Unix domain socket (UDS) — a special type of file — which is
       supported by native Mac OS filesystems, but not on network-mounted filesystems, NTFS, or
       FAT32. Other filesystems may or may not have the needed support; the fsmonitor daemon is not
       guaranteed to work with these filesystems and such use is considered experimental.

       By default, the socket is created in the .git directory. However, if the .git directory is on
       a network-mounted filesystem, it will instead be created at $HOME/.git-fsmonitor-* unless
       $HOME itself is on a network-mounted filesystem, in which case you must set the configuration
       variable fsmonitor.socketDir to the path of a directory on a Mac OS native filesystem in
       which to create the socket file.

       If none of the above directories (.git, $HOME, or fsmonitor.socketDir) is on a native Mac OS
       file filesystem the fsmonitor daemon will report an error that will cause the daemon and the
       currently running command to exit.

CONFIGURATION
       Everything below this line in this section is selectively included from the git-config(1)
       documentation. The content is the same as what’s found there:

       fsmonitor.allowRemote
           By default, the fsmonitor daemon refuses to work with network-mounted repositories.
           Setting fsmonitor.allowRemote to true overrides this behavior. Only respected when
           core.fsmonitor is set to true.

       fsmonitor.socketDir
           This Mac OS-specific option, if set, specifies the directory in which to create the Unix
           domain socket used for communication between the fsmonitor daemon and various Git
           commands. The directory must reside on a native Mac OS filesystem. Only respected when
           core.fsmonitor is set to true.

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

NOTES
        1. simple IPC
           file:///usr/share/doc/git/html/technical/api-simple-ipc.html

Git 2.43.0                                   07/02/2025                     GIT-FSMONITOR--DAEMON(1)