validate

Dry-run audit. Discovers repos, validates configs, computes findings, and reports drift without making any changes.

gitrepoforge validate [flags]

Flags

Flag Required Description
--repo <name> no Target a single repo by its directory name.
--json no Output results as JSON instead of human-readable text.
--verbose no In human-readable mode, print git-style unified diffs for each finding.

Behavior

  1. Loads the root config (.gitrepoforge-config) and config repo (config/, outputs/, templates/).
  2. Discovers Git repos in the workspace (or targets the single --repo).
  3. For each repo:
    • If no .gitrepoforge file exists, the repo is skipped.
    • Validates the per-repo config, including default_branch and any configured manifest path, against the shared config schema.
    • Selects template files, renders them, and compares them to the current file state, including the managed-files manifest at its resolved path.
  4. Reports each repo’s status.

When --verbose is set, drift findings also include per-file git-style unified diffs. Diff output includes hunk headers with old and new line ranges and uses the standard three lines of surrounding context where available. Removed lines are red and added lines are green unless the NO_COLOR environment variable is set.

Statuses

Status Meaning
clean Repo is compliant and no changes are needed.
skipped Repo has no .gitrepoforge file.
invalid Validation errors such as missing config values or type mismatches.
drift Findings were detected and files differ from the desired state.

When commit is not enabled in the root config and a repo is clean, the output may include an additional detail if the repo has uncommitted changes: compliant (not staged) or compliant (staged, not committed).

When ignore_missing is true in the root config, repos with the skipped status are not shown in the human-readable output.