Glossary

The words this documentation uses, in alphabetical order.

.gitnested file: A small YAML or TOML file in each nested folder. It records the upstream, the branch, the upstream commit and the sync point. It is committed to your repository, but never pushed upstream. See The .gitnested file.
join method: How a pull puts upstream changes and your local changes together: merge (the default) or rebase. Set it with -M, --merge or --rebase, or with the method field.
level file: A .gitnested.level2, .gitnested.level3, … file. It lets you pull and push a nested repository that sits inside another nested repository. See Nested repositories inside nested repositories.
local commit: A commit of your repository that changes files in a nested folder, made after the last sync. push sends these upstream.
nested branch: A local branch, nested/<subdir> by default. It holds the history of the nested folder as if it were its own repository. branch, pull and push build it. clean removes it.
nested folder, <subdir>: The folder in your repository that holds the nested repository, for example ext/lib. The commands take it as their first argument.
nested refs: Refs under refs/nested/<subdir>/: fetch, branch, commit, push. They remember the last fetched, built, committed and pushed commits. git nested status -v shows them. git nested clean --force removes them.
nested repository: A folder of your repository whose content comes from another repository. It has a .gitnested file.
parent repository: Your repository: the one that holds the nested folders.
parent, sync point: The commit of your repository at which the nested folder and upstream were last equal. It is stored as parent in .gitnested. git-nested rebuilds the nested history from there.
read-only: A nested repository you only pull. push refuses it. Set readonly to true with git nested config.
review branch: The branch push uses upstream when you give no -b: <parent repository name>-<tracked branch>, for example app-main. You can open a pull request from it.
squash: By default a pull makes one commit in your repository. With --no-squash the upstream commits are kept too, as the second parent of that commit.
tracked branch: The upstream branch a nested repository follows. It is stored as branch in .gitnested.
upstream: The other repository: the one whose content is nested. Its URL or path is stored as remote in .gitnested.
upstream commit: The commit of upstream that the nested folder is based on. It is stored as commit in .gitnested.
worktree: A second working folder of your repository, made with git worktree. git-nested checks out the nested branch there, under .git/tmp/nested/<subdir> by default. You resolve conflicts there.