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Merge pull request microsoft#377: Update README to include Scalar CLI…
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I created these as `fixup!` commits so they get squashed in the next major release rebase, but also so they can be reviewed commit-by-commit.

* The first is a doozy, adjusting line widths and otherwise updating some minor things here and there.
* The rest are small and explained by the body of the commit messages.
* One non-`fixup!` commit adds the `docs/` directory from `microsoft/scalar`, with some edits due to the C port of Scalar.
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derrickstolee authored and ldennington committed Jan 25, 2022
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51 changes: 51 additions & 0 deletions contrib/scalar/docs/faq.md
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Frequently Asked Questions
==========================

Using Scalar
------------

### I don't want a sparse clone, I want every file after I clone!

Run `scalar clone --full-clone <url>` to initialize your repo to include
every file. You can switch to a sparse-checkout later by running
`git sparse-checkout init --cone`.

### I already cloned without `--full-clone`. How do I get everything?

Run `git sparse-checkout disable`.

Scalar Design Decisions
-----------------------

There may be many design decisions within Scalar that are confusing at first
glance. Some of them may cause friction when you use Scalar with your existing
repos and existing habits.

> Scalar has the most benefit when users design repositories
> with efficient patterns.
For example: Scalar uses the sparse-checkout feature to limit the size of the
working directory within a large monorepo. It is designed to work efficiently
with monorepos that are highly componentized, allowing most developers to
need many fewer files in their daily work.

### Why does `scalar clone` create a `<repo>/src` folder?

Scalar uses a file system watcher to keep track of changes under this `src` folder.
Any activity in this folder is assumed to be important to Git operations. By
creating the `src` folder, we are making it easy for your build system to
create output folders outside the `src` directory. We commonly see systems
create folders for build outputs and package downloads. Scalar itself creates
these folders during its builds.

Your build system may create build artifacts such as `.obj` or `.lib` files
next to your source code. These are commonly "hidden" from Git using
`.gitignore` files. Having such artifacts in your source tree creates
additional work for Git because it needs to look at these files and match them
against the `.gitignore` patterns.

By following the `src` pattern Scalar tries to establish and placing your build
intermediates and outputs parallel with the `src` folder and not inside it,
you can help optimize Git command performance for developers in the repository
by limiting the number of files Git needs to consider for many common
operations.
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Getting Started
===============

Registering existing Git repos
------------------------------

To add a repository to the list of registered repos, run `scalar register [<path>]`.
If `<path>` is not provided, then the "current repository" is discovered from
the working directory by scanning the parent paths for a path containing a `.git`
folder, possibly inside a `src` folder.

To see which repositories are currently tracked by the service, run
`scalar list`.

Run `scalar unregister [<path>]` to remove the repo from this list.

Creating a new Scalar clone using the GVFS Protocol
---------------------------------------------------

The `clone` verb creates a local enlistment of a remote repository using the
[GVFS protocol](https://github.com/microsoft/VFSForGit/blob/HEAD/Protocol.md),
such as Azure Repos.

```
scalar clone [options] <url> [<dir>]
```

Create a local copy of the repository at `<url>`. If specified, create the `<dir>`
directory and place the repository there. Otherwise, the last section of the `<url>`
will be used for `<dir>`.

At the end, the repo is located at `<dir>/src`. By default, the sparse-checkout
feature is enabled and the only files present are those in the root of your
Git repository. Use `git sparse-checkout set` to expand the set of directories
you want to see, or `git sparse-checkout disable` to expand to all files. You
can explore the subdirectories outside your sparse-checkout specification using
`git ls-tree HEAD`.

### Sparse Repo Mode

By default, Scalar reduces your working directory to only the files at the
root of the repository. You need to add the folders you care about to build up
to your working set.

* `scalar clone <url>`
* Please choose the **Clone with HTTPS** option in the `Clone Repository` dialog in Azure Repos, not **Clone with SSH**.
* `cd <root>\src`
* At this point, your `src` directory only contains files that appear in your root
tree. No folders are populated.
* Set the directory list for your sparse-checkout using:
1. `git sparse-checkout set <dir1> <dir2> ...`
2. `git sparse-checkout set --stdin < dir-list.txt`
* Run git commands as you normally would.
* To fully populate your working directory, run `git sparse-checkout disable`.

If instead you want to start with all files on-disk, you can clone with the
`--full-clone` option. To enable sparse-checkout after the fact, run
`git sparse-checkout init --cone`. This will initialize your sparse-checkout
patterns to only match the files at root.

If you are unfamiliar with what directories are available in the repository,
then you can run `git ls-tree -d --name-only HEAD` to discover the directories
at root, or `git ls-tree -d --name-only HEAD <path>` to discover the directories
in `<path>`.

### Options

These options allow a user to customize their initial enlistment.

* `--full-clone`: If specified, do not initialize the sparse-checkout feature.
All files will be present in your `src` directory. This behaves very similar
to a Git partial clone in that blobs are downloaded on demand. However, it
will use the GVFS protocol to download all Git objects.

* `--cache-server-url=<url>`: If specified, set the intended cache server to
the specified `<url>`. All object queries will use the GVFS protocol to this
`<url>` instead of the origin remote. If the remote supplies a list of
cache servers via the `<url>/gvfs/config` endpoint, then the `clone` command
will select a nearby cache server from that list.

* `--branch=<ref>`: Specify the branch to checkout after clone.

* `--local-cache-path=<path>`: Use this option to override the path for the
local Scalar cache. If not specified, then Scalar will select a default
path to share objects with your other enlistments. On Windows, this path
is a subdirectory of `<Volume>:\.scalarCache\`. On Mac, this path is a
subdirectory of `~/.scalarCache/`. The default cache path is recommended so
multiple enlistments of the same remote repository share objects on the
same device.

### Advanced Options

The options below are not intended for use by a typical user. These are
usually used by build machines to create a temporary enlistment that
operates on a single commit.

* `--single-branch`: Use this option to only download metadata for the branch
that will be checked out. This is helpful for build machines that target
a remote with many branches. Any `git fetch` commands after the clone will
still ask for all branches.

* `--no-prefetch`: Use this option to not prefetch commits after clone. This
is not recommended for anyone planning to use their clone for history
traversal. Use of this option will make commands like `git log` or
`git pull` extremely slow and is therefore not recommended.

Removing a Scalar Clone
-----------------------

Since the `scalar clone` command sets up a file-system watcher (when available),
that watcher could prevent deleting the enlistment. Run `scalar delete <path>`
from outside of your enlistment to unregister the enlistment from the filesystem
watcher and delete the enlistment at `<path>`.
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Scalar: Enabling Git at Scale
=============================

Scalar is a tool that helps Git scale to some of the largest Git repositories.
It achieves this by enabling some advanced Git features, such as:

* *Partial clone:* reduces time to get a working repository by not
downloading all Git objects right away.

* *Background prefetch:* downloads Git object data from all remotes every
hour, reducing the amount of time for foreground `git fetch` calls.

* *Sparse-checkout:* limits the size of your working directory.

* *File system monitor:* tracks the recently modified files and eliminates
the need for Git to scan the entire worktree.

* *Commit-graph:* accelerates commit walks and reachability calculations,
speeding up commands like `git log`.

* *Multi-pack-index:* enables fast object lookups across many pack-files.

* *Incremental repack:* Repacks the packed Git data into fewer pack-file
without disrupting concurrent commands by using the multi-pack-index.

By running `scalar register` in any Git repo, Scalar will automatically enable
these features for that repo (except partial clone) and start running suggested
maintenance in the background using
[the `git maintenance` feature](https://git-scm.com/docs/git-maintenance).

Repos cloned with the `scalar clone` command use partial clone or the
[GVFS protocol](https://github.com/microsoft/VFSForGit/blob/HEAD/Protocol.md)
to significantly reduce the amount of data required to get started
using a repository. By delaying all blob downloads until they are required,
Scalar allows you to work with very large repositories quickly. The GVFS
protocol allows a network of _cache servers_ to serve objects with lower
latency and higher throughput. The cache servers also reduce load on the
central server.

Documentation
-------------

* [Getting Started](getting-started.md): Get started with Scalar.
Includes `scalar register`, `scalar unregister`, `scalar clone`, and
`scalar delete`.

* [Troubleshooting](troubleshooting.md):
Collect diagnostic information or update custom settings. Includes
`scalar diagnose` and `scalar cache-server`.

* [The Philosophy of Scalar](philosophy.md): Why does Scalar work the way
it does, and how do we make decisions about its future?

* [Frequently Asked Questions](faq.md)
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The Philosophy of Scalar
========================

The team building Scalar has **opinions** about Git performance. Scalar
takes out the guesswork by automatically configuring your Git repositories
to take advantage of the latest and greatest features. It is difficult to
say that these are the absolute best settings for every repository, but
these settings do work for some of the largest repositories in the world.

Scalar intends to do very little more than the standard Git client. We
actively implement new features into Git instead of Scalar, then update
Scalar only to configure those new settings. In particular, we are porting
features like background maintenance to Git to make Scalar simpler and
make Git more powerful.

Scalar ships inside [a custom version of Git][microsoft-git], but we are
working to make it available in other forks of Git. The only feature
that is not intended to ever reach the standard Git client is Scalar's use
of [the GVFS Protocol][gvfs-protocol], which is essentially an older
version of [Git's partial clone feature](https://github.blog/2020-12-21-get-up-to-speed-with-partial-clone-and-shallow-clone/)
that was available first in Azure Repos. Services such as GitHub support
only partial clone instead of the GVFS protocol because that is the
standard adopted by the Git project. If your hosting service supports
partial clone, then we absolutely recommend it as a way to greatly speed
up your clone and fetch times and to reduce how much disk space your Git
repository requires. Scalar will help with this!

If you don't use the GVFS Protocol, then most of the value of Scalar can
be found in the core Git client. However, most of the advanced features
that really optimize Git's performance are off by default for compatibility
reasons. To really take advantage of Git's latest and greatest features,
you either need to study the [`git config` documentation](https://git-scm.com/docs/git-config)
and regularly read [the Git release notes](https://github.com/git/git/tree/master/Documentation/RelNotes).
Even if you do all that work and customize your Git settings on your machines,
you likely will want to share those settings with other team members.
Or, you can just use Scalar!

Using `scalar register` on an existing Git repository will give you these
benefits:

* Additional compression of your `.git/index` file.
* Hourly background `git fetch` operations, keeping you in-sync with your
remotes.
* Advanced data structures, such as the `commit-graph` and `multi-pack-index`
are updated automatically in the background.
* If using macOS or Windows, then Scalar configures Git's builtin File System
Monitor, providing faster commands such as `git status` or `git add`.

Additionally, if you use `scalar clone` to create a new repository, then
you will automatically get these benefits:

* Use Git's partial clone feature to only download the files you need for
your current checkout.
* Use Git's [sparse-checkout feature][sparse-checkout] to minimize the
number of files required in your working directory.
[Read more about sparse-checkout here.][sparse-checkout-blog]
* Create the Git repository inside `<repo-name>/src` to make it easy to
place build artifacts outside of the Git repository, such as in
`<repo-name>/bin` or `<repo-name>/packages`.

We also admit that these **opinions** can always be improved! If you have
an idea of how to improve our setup, consider
[creating an issue](https://github.com/microsoft/scalar/issues/new) or
contributing a pull request! Some [existing](https://github.com/microsoft/scalar/issues/382)
[issues](https://github.com/microsoft/scalar/issues/388) have already
improved our configuration settings and roadmap!

[gvfs-protocol]: https://github.com/microsoft/VFSForGit/blob/HEAD/Protocol.md
[microsoft-git]: https://github.com/microsoft/git
[sparse-checkout]: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-sparse-checkout
[sparse-checkout-blog]: https://github.blog/2020-01-17-bring-your-monorepo-down-to-size-with-sparse-checkout/
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Troubleshooting
===============

Diagnosing Issues
-----------------

The `scalar diagnose` command collects logs and config details for the current
repository. The resulting zip file helps root-cause issues.

When run inside your repository, creates a zip file containing several important
files for that repository. This includes:

* Configuration files from your `.git` folder, such as the `config` file,
`index`, `hooks`, and `refs`.

* A summary of your Git object database, including the number of loose objects
and the names and sizes of pack-files.

As the `diagnose` command completes, it provides the path of the resulting
zip file. This zip can be sent to [the support team](mailto:[email protected])
for investigation.

Modifying Configuration Values
------------------------------

The Scalar-specific configuration is only available for repos using the
GVFS protocol.

### Cache Server URL

When using an enlistment cloned with `scalar clone` and the GVFS protocol,
you will have a value called the cache server URL. Cache servers are a feature
of the GVFS protocol to provide low-latency access to the on-demand object
requests. This modifies the `gvfs.cache-server` setting in your local Git config
file.

Run `scalar cache-server --get` to see the current cache server.

Run `scalar cache-server --list` to see the available cache server URLs.

Run `scalar cache-server --set=<url>` to set your cache server to `<url>`.

### Scalar Config

The `scalar config` command is used for customizing the feed used for
Scalar upgrades. This is so large teams can bundle a custom installer
or other tools along with Scalar upgrades.

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