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 2.47.3 07/30/2025 GIT-FSMONITOR--DAEMON(1)
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