I am working quite a bit on repositories where there are different branches for different versions. Regularly, I need to compare stuff between branches. This requires more git techniques than I care for. Moreover, when I am working on a changing a branch, it is annoying to check out things in other branches.

Enter gitfuse.

This daemon mounts a readonly FUSE file system locally with predefined branches in different directories. You can only look at the contents of the files. There is no concept of editing and history.

It is preferred to have gitfus look at the upstream origin branches. Then you have an objective view on the current state of the authorative branch.

Gitfuse installs inotify watchers on the configured branches. Whenever you do git fetch origin or git pull and HEAD changes, the directory is regenerated.

gitfuse expects a configfile in ~/.config/gitfuse/config.yaml. An alternative location can be specified with -c path/to/file.

$ git clone https://github.com/joepvd/gitfuse.git
$ cd gitfuse
$ pip3 install --user .

There is a systemd service file included that can be copied into ~/.config/systemd/user. Test with:

$ systemctl start --user gitfuse.service
$ systemctl enable --user gitfuse.service