gitbusy.vim

Stash your Vim session using git stash before switching to another branch.

Summary

A snapshot of your session (including staged hunks, undo history, and viminfo/shada) is completely stashed in the git repository. It allows you to switch between branches mid-work without losing where you left off.

This plugin is heavily inspired by vim-promiscuous. A new plugin was started because incorporating the changes I wanted would most likely lead to a complete rewrite of vim-promiscuous.

Installation

Any plugin manager will work.

Usage

:GitBusy <branch name>

Use :GitBusy to switch to a branch. If called with no arguments, a list of branches will be printed for you to select from. There is an option to enable a shorter :GB command.

Options are documented in :help gitbusy

Difference with vim-promiscuous

• Doesn't require FZF (although it is a pretty great addon for Neovim).
• undodir is not completely overridden. A new path is added to it allowing your existing undo history to work. Undo history created from that point forward will simply write to the managed directory.
• Your settings are used as-is (with the exception of undodir). Settings are temporarily changed only to create the session.
• The stashed session is not persistent. It's deleted as soon as a stash is restored.
• Undo history is stored within the git repository itself and is stashed along with your uncommitted work. This allows you to rename the repository directory or move it without losing undo history.
• The viminfo or shada file is saved in the stash so marks, jumps, registers, etc. can be preserved. This simply uses what you've configured viminfo/shada to persist.
• Staged commits are stored as a diff file in the stash. I feel this is a safer way to save/restore uncommitted changes compared to using git reset. If all else fails, you can work the diff out yourself.

Caveats / Notes

I consider these to be acceptable caveats. But, gitbusy might not be right for you if you don't like them.

• Manually using git checkout may leave dangling stashes. You'll be prompted to delete them before :GitBusy will switch branches.
• All buffers must be saved (nomodified) in order to switch branches.
• Terminals can't be opened in Neovim in order to switch branches.
• Stashes may become large over time depending on your viminfo/shada options, undo levels, etc.
• You may lose work if you manually/accidentally remove gitbusy's stashes. See git-stash about a possible recovery.
• gitbusy's data directory is created at the work tree's root.
• An entry for gitbusy's data directory is ignored by adding an entry to .git/info/exclude.
• Sessions are saved with the following settings: buffers, curdir, folds, help, slash, tabpages, unix
• Things may get mixed up if the current directory is different from what gitbusy thinks it should be.

License

MIT