setup: introduce "extensions.refStorage" extension

Introduce a new "extensions.refStorage" extension that allows us to
specify the ref storage format used by a repository. For now, the only
supported format is the "files" format, but this list will likely soon
be extended to also support the upcoming "reftable" format.

There have been discussions on the Git mailing list in the past around
how exactly this extension should look like. One alternative [1] that
was discussed was whether it would make sense to model the extension in
such a way that backends are arbitrarily stackable. This would allow for
a combined value of e.g. "loose,packed-refs" or "loose,reftable", which
indicates that new refs would be written via "loose" files backend and
compressed into "packed-refs" or "reftable" backends, respectively.

It is arguable though whether this flexibility and the complexity that
it brings with it is really required for now. It is not foreseeable that
there will be a proliferation of backends in the near-term future, and
the current set of existing formats and formats which are on the horizon
can easily be configured with the much simpler proposal where we have a
single value, only.

Furthermore, if we ever see that we indeed want to gain the ability to
arbitrarily stack the ref formats, then we can adapt the current
extension rather easily. Given that Git clients will refuse any unknown
value for the "extensions.refStorage" extension they would also know to
ignore a stacked "loose,packed-refs" in the future.

So let's stick with the easy proposal for the time being and wire up the
extension.

[1]: <pull.1408.git.1667846164.gitgitgadget@gmail.com>

Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

3 files changed, 17 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/config/extensions.txt b/Documentation/config/extensions.txt
index bccaec7a96..66db0e15da 100644
--- a/Documentation/config/extensions.txt
+++ b/Documentation/config/extensions.txt
@@ -7,6 +7,17 @@ Note that this setting should only be set by linkgit:git-init[1] or
 linkgit:git-clone[1].  Trying to change it after initialization will not
 work and will produce hard-to-diagnose issues.
 
+extensions.refStorage::
+	Specify the ref storage format to use. The acceptable values are:
++
+include::../ref-storage-format.txt[]
++
+It is an error to specify this key unless `core.repositoryFormatVersion` is 1.
++
+Note that this setting should only be set by linkgit:git-init[1] or
+linkgit:git-clone[1]. Trying to change it after initialization will not
+work and will produce hard-to-diagnose issues.
+
 extensions.worktreeConfig::
 	If enabled, then worktrees will load config settings from the
 	`$GIT_DIR/config.worktree` file in addition to the
diff --git a/Documentation/ref-storage-format.txt b/Documentation/ref-storage-format.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..1a65cac468
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/ref-storage-format.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+* `files` for loose files with packed-refs. This is the default.
diff --git a/Documentation/technical/repository-version.txt b/Documentation/technical/repository-version.txt
index 045a76756f..27be3741e6 100644
--- a/Documentation/technical/repository-version.txt
+++ b/Documentation/technical/repository-version.txt
@@ -100,3 +100,8 @@ If set, by default "git config" reads from both "config" and
 multiple working directory mode, "config" file is shared while
 "config.worktree" is per-working directory (i.e., it's in
 GIT_COMMON_DIR/worktrees/<id>/config.worktree)
+
+==== `refStorage`
+
+Specifies the file format for the ref database. The only valid value
+is `files` (loose references with a packed-refs file).