Why am I getting the message, "fatal: This operation must be run in a work tree?"

Question

Just installed git on Windows. I set the GIT_DIR variable to be c:\git\ and verified that this environment variable is maintained by cygwin (i.e. echo $GIT_DIR is what it should be). I went to the folder that I wanted to create the git repository for, let's say c:\www, and then ran:

git init
git add .

Then I get the error:

fatal: This operation must be run in a work tree

I'm not sure what went wrong, but the c:\git directory has a config file that says:

[core]
    repositoryformatversion = 0
    filemode = false
    bare = true
    symlinks = false
    ignorecase = true

I'm pretty sure this shouldn't be bare and that's our problem.

Answer 1

The direct reason for the error is that yes, it's impossible to use git-add with a bare repository. A bare repository, by definition, has no work tree. git-add takes files from the work tree and adds them to the index, in preparation for committing.

You may need to put a bit of thought into your setup here, though. GIT_DIR is the repository directory used for all git commands. Are you really trying to create a single repository for everything you track, maybe things all over your system? A git repository by nature tracks the contents of a single directory. You'll need to set GIT_WORK_TREE to a path containing everything you want to track, and then you'll need a .gitignore to block out everything you're not interested in tracking.

Maybe you're trying to create a repository which will track just c:\www? Then you should put it in c:\www (don't set GIT_DIR). This is the normal usage of git, with the repository in the .git directory of the top-level directory of your "module".

Unless you have a really good reason, I'd recommend sticking with the way git likes to work. If you have several things to track, you probably want several repositories!

Answer 2

Explicitly setting the GIT_DIR environment variable forces git to use the given directory as the git repository. It is never needed during normal use.

In your example, because have specified a GIT_DIR and it isn't named .git (the leading dot is important) and you haven't provided a --work-tree option or set the GIT_WORK_TREE environment variable, that you want a bare repository when you said git init.

Because a bare repository has no working tree a large selection of commands don't make sense with a bare repository. git add is just one.

Is there a particular reason that you need to use a non-standard location for your git repository, rather than in a .git subfolder under the working tree root? While it's possible to arrange this it tends to be more work and more liable to user mistakes.

Answer 3

1. We're just following the 'Everyday GIT in 20 commands' and git-init(1) manpPage by Linus T. (which unfortunately may be out-dated?)
2. Your post only suggests what is wrong but gives us no clue to what to do about it