Screenshotbot Ditches GitHub Dependency, Efficiently Uses git-upload-pack
To enhance security and support more Git platforms, Screenshotbot initially chose not to read GitHub repositories. While this limited functionality, it improved user confidence and security review approval rates. The article details how Screenshotbot uses commit-graph construction and the git-upload-pack protocol to efficiently retrieve necessary information, supporting shallow clones and addressing the time-consuming issue of cloning large monorepos. The new method leverages existing SSH access in customers' CI jobs to directly access commit information via the git-upload-pack protocol, avoiding dependence on GitHub APIs. This improves efficiency, stability, and supports more platforms, including self-hosted Git repositories. Despite the complexities of the git-upload-pack protocol, the author notes several important details, such as the Packfile format and limitations of different Git servers. This article provides valuable experience and references for developers.
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