Introduction

git-tfs is a two-way bridge between TFS (Team Foundation Server) and git, similar to git-svn. It fetches TFS commits into a git repository, and lets you push your updates back to TFS.

The most recent version is 0.24.0. See the change history for details.

If you're having problems, check out the troubleshooting page. And read how to report an issue, before doing so ;)

Get git-tfs

To get a stable version:

• Download a binary. Find it on the release page,
• Using Chocolatey. If Chocolatey is already installed on your computer, run choco install gittfs to install the Chocolatey package

To get a development version

• Build from source code. See §Building for more informations...
• Download a package of the development version generated by the last builds (in the artifacts section).

Whatever the way you get git-tfs, you should have git-tfs.exe in your path (and git, too).

Add the git-tfs folder path to your PATH. You could also set it temporary (the time of your current terminal session) using :

set PATH=%PATH%;%cd%\GitTfs\bin\Debug

Use git-tfs

You need .NET 4 and either the 2010, 2012 or 2013 version of Team Explorer installed (or Visual Studio).

Help

#lists the available commands
git tfs help

#shows a summary of the usage of a given command
git tfs help <command>

Cloning

# [optional] find a tfs repository path to clone :
git tfs list-remote-branches http://tfs:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection

# clone the whole repository (wait for a while...) :
git tfs clone http://tfs:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection $/some_project

# or, if you're impatient (and want to work from the last changeset) :
git tfs quick-clone http://tfs:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection $/some_project

# or, if you're impatient (and want a specific changeset) :
git tfs quick-clone http://tfs:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection $/some_project -c=145

Note: Before cloning your repository, please have a look at the clone command doc or advanced use cases to discover options that could help you!

Working

cd some_project
git log # shows your TFS history, unless you did quick-clone
tf history # error: no workspace ;)

# [do work, do work, just using git], then...
# gets latest from TFS to the branch tfs/default :
git tfs fetch

Checkin

# report all the commits on TFS :
git tfs rcheckin

# or commit using the tfs checkin window
git tfs checkintool 

# or commit with a message
git tfs checkin -m "Did stuff"

# or shelve your changes :
git tfs shelve MY_AWESOME_CHANGES

git-tfs is designed to work outside of any existing TFS workspaces.

More advanced use cases

Have a look to more detailed git-tfs use cases:

• Working with no branches
• Manage TFS branches with git-tfs
• Migrate your history from TFSVC to a git repository
• Working with shelvesets
• Git and Tfs (ProGit v2 Book)
• Migrate from Tfs to Git (ProGit v2 Book)

Available commands / options

This is the complete list of commands in the master branch on github.

Repository setup

• list-remote-branches: list tfs branches that can be cloned or initialized - since 0.17
• clone: clone a tfs path/branch and its history in a git repository - since 0.9
• quick-clone: clone a specific changeset of a tfs path/branch in a git repository - since 0.9
• bootstrap: bootstrap an existing git-tfs repository cloned from an existing repository - since 0.11
• init: initialize a git-tfs repository (without getting changesets) - since 0.9

Pull from TFS

• clone: clone a tfs path/branch and its history in a git repository - since 0.9
• fetch: get changesets from tfs and update the tfs remote - since 0.9
• pull: get changesets from tfs, update the tfs remote and update your work - since 0.9
• quick-clone: clone a specific changeset (without history) of a tfs path/branch in a git repository - since 0.9
• unshelve: fetch a tfs shelvesets in your repository - since 0.11
• shelve-list: list tfs shelvesets - since 0.12
• labels: fetch tfs labels - since 0.17

Push to TFS

• rcheckin: replicate your git commits as tfs changesets - since 0.12
• checkin: checkin your git commits as one tfs changeset - since 0.10
• checkintool: checkin in tfs using the tfs checkin dialog - since 0.10
• shelve: create a shelveset from git commits - since 0.9

Manage TFS branches

• list-remote-branches: list tfs branches that can be cloned or initialized - since 0.17
• branch: manage (initialize, create, remove) tfs branches - since 0.17

Other

• info: get some informations about git-tfs and tfs

• cleanup: clean some git-tfs internal objects - since 0.10

• cleanup-workspaces: clean tfs workspaces created by git-tfs - since 0.10

• help: get help on git-tfs commands - since 0.9

• verify: verify the changesets fetched - since 0.11

• autotag option - since 0.12

• subtree: manage sparse tfs pathes with git-tfs - since 0.19

• reset-remote: reset a tfs remote to a previous changeset to fetch again its history - since 0.19

• checkout: checkout a commit by a changeset id - since 0.21

• diagnostics (for git-tfs developers only) - since 0.9

• config file

Building

Continuous Integration Status

& ( Great thanks to Jetbrains Teamcity and AppVeyor! )

Prerequisites

• MSBuild (included in .NET 4)

And depending of the version of TFS you use :

• Visual Studio 2013 SDK
• Visual Studio 2012 SDK
• Visual Studio 2010 SDK

Get the source code and build

#get the source code
git clone git://github.com/git-tfs/git-tfs.git
cd git-tfs

#building with MSBuild (with the default configuration: debug)
msbuild GitTfs.sln

#or building with MSBuild in release
msbuild GitTfs.sln /p:Configuration=release

#or with Rake (Ruby)
rake build:debug

Note: if the build fails because you don't have all the Visual Studio SDK, just unload in Visual Studio all the projects you are not interested in to be able to build and use your own version.

Contributing

Contributions are always welcome. Thanks to all our contributors!

There are some simple guidelines.

Especially, don't forget to set core.autocrlf to true (git config core.autocrlf true), and indentation using 4 spaces.

Migrations

If you're migrating a TFS server from 2008 or 2005 to 2010, you might want to Specify Alternate TFS URLs.

If you have questions or suggestions about how we could improve git-tfs you could go to google group.

Example of setting up central git repository that tracks TFS automatically.

Community

Drop in and chat in We also have a mailing list.