Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] Documentation: describe connectivity checking

[Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>]

On Mon, Oct 05, 2026 at 12:17:27PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im> writes:
> 
> >> +Full connectivity check
> >> +-----------------------
> >> +
> >> +`check_connected()` (see `connected.c`) normally performs the
> >
> > I'm always a bit hesitant to directly refer to code in our docs. We
> > should either make this documentation part of "connected.c" directly, or
> > we should not refer to code. Otherwise, chances that this documentation
> > grows stale is very high.
> 
> This is totally outside the topic of documentation updates, but it
> makes me wonder if we should pay attention to connectivity roots
> other than refs (like index entries) that we use when we run fsck.

Hmm, I'm not sure. I guess performance of the connectivity check is
typically an issue on the server side only, much less so on the client
side. And the server would of course typically not even have an index
entry at all. Same for reflogs, at least in many setups.

I also wonder whether that'd really speed things up if we add more data
sources. At GitLab we typically have the problem that we have too many
connectivity roots with refs alone, and that is making the whole check
painfully slow in some repositories. So adding more connectivity roots
to it would probably be counterproductive.

Patrick