Magitsh

Ever wondered how Git actually works? magitsh is a fully functional Git implementation built with Node.js. No magic, just clean code you can read and understand.

✨ Features

• Real Git Objects - Implements blobs, trees, and commits with SHA-1 hashing and zlib compression
• Async File System - Built on Node.js fs/promises for efficient non-blocking file operations and recursive directory handling
• Graph Algorithms - Uses DAG data structures with BFS traversal for commit history and merge base detection
• Smart Merging - Three-way merge algorithm with automatic conflict detection and resolution
• Complete CLI - All essential Git commands: init, add, commit, branch, checkout, merge, diff, log, status
• Production Ready - Published on npm with full test coverage using Jest

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🎯 Commands

magitsh init              # Initialize repository
magitsh add <files>       # Stage files
magitsh commit -m "msg"   # Create commit
magitsh status            # Check status
magitsh log               # View history
magitsh branch            # List branches
magitsh checkout <branch> # Switch branches
magitsh checkout -b <br>  # Create new branch
magitsh merge <branch>    # Merge branches
magitsh diff              # Show changes

🏗️ How It Works

Repository Structure

.magitsh/
├── objects/           # Content-addressed storage
│   ├── [ab]/[cdef]   # Blobs, trees, commits (SHA-1 based)
│   ├── info/
│   └── pack/
├── refs/
│   ├── heads/        # Branch pointers
│   └── tags/         # Tag references
├── hooks/            # Hook samples
│   ├── pre-commit.sample
│   └── commit-msg.sample
├── info/
│   └── exclude       # Gitignore patterns
├── HEAD              # Current branch (ref: refs/heads/main)
├── index.json        # Staging area
├── config            # Repository config
└── description       # Repository description

Core Concepts

Objects: Everything is stored as content-addressed objects

• Blobs: File contents (compressed with zlib)
• Trees: Directory structures (mode + name + hash)
• Commits: Snapshots with parent pointers (supports multiple parents)

DAG (Graph): Commits form a directed acyclic graph

• BFS traversal for finding lowest common ancestor
• Distance tracking for merge base detection
• Topological ordering for commit history

Branches: Lightweight references to commits

• Stored as text files in refs/heads/
• HEAD points to current branch
• Branch validation ensures safe names

🛠️ Built With

• Node.js - Runtime environment
• Commander.js - CLI argument parsing
• Chalk - Terminal styling and colors
• Jest - Testing framework
• zlib - Compression (deflate/inflate)
• crypto - SHA-1 hashing
• fs/promises - Async file operations

🎯 Key Algorithms

Three-Way Merge

Base (LCA)     Current (HEAD)    Incoming (feature)
    |               |                    |
    └───────────────┴────────────────────┘
                    ↓
         Conflict Detection:
         • modify-modify: Both changed differently
         • add-add: Both added different content
         • delete-modify: Deleted vs modified
         • modify-delete: Modified vs deleted
                    ↓
         Auto-merge clean changes
                    ↓
         Create conflict markers for conflicts

Lowest Common Ancestor (LCA)

// BFS from both commits simultaneously
const ancestors1 = getAncestorsWithDistance(commit1);
const ancestors2 = getAncestorsWithDistance(commit2);

// Find common ancestors
const common = findIntersection(ancestors1, ancestors2);

// Select LCA with minimum total distance
return common.sort((a, b) => 
  (a.dist1 + a.dist2) - (b.dist1 + b.dist2)
)[0];

Installation

npm install -g magitsh

🧪 Testing

npm test

👥 Contributors

Thanks goes to these wonderful people in the team:

Abdelrahman Elaraby

Zeyad Zahran