Don't run git ls-remote in the project directory

[Diggsey]

What is the current behavior?

Currently, when installing a dependency from a git repo, yarn will at some point run git ls-remote <url> to find the tags in that repo.

Unfortunately, there is a bug/feature in git, where git ls-remote will fail if run in an invalid git repo, even though it will work fine without any git repo.

If the current behavior is a bug, please provide the steps to reproduce.

• Create an invalid git repo
  Easiest way to do this is to create a file called .git with the contents gitdir: ../../.git/modules/something
• Create a package.json with a git dependency
• Try to run yarn

What is the expected behavior?

Install should succeed, taking no notice of invalid git repo.

Yarn should run git ls-remote in a different directory: one known to be outside any valid/invalid git repo. Where doesn't really matter.

[rally25rs]

Why would you use a git dependency to include something that isn't a git repo, or isn't a valid git repo? This doesn't seem like a yarn problem, more like an invalid use case.

[Diggsey]

@rally25rs please re-read the description. The dependency is a perfectly valid git repo: the problem here is when the working directory is not a valid git repo. Yarn should not have any assumptions about the working directory being a valid git repo.

[davidroeca]

@rally25rs this happens when the working directory is mounted as a docker volume:

meta-repo/
  .git/ # directory
  docker-compose.yml
  submodule-app/ #mounted as a volume
    .git # just a file
    Dockerfile
    .dockerignore # ignores .git in the COPY/ADD directive; volumes don't ignore 

For example, let's say I'm developing an app running in docker and want to add a new dependency; if the entire submodule directory is mounted as a volume, the .git file is also there.

I can hack this by making sure the parent directory contains the parent repository's .git directory, but it would be nice if yarn (and potentially git) were failure-tolerant with this approach.

[guillaume86]

I have the same use case as @davidroeca and the same issue.

[zavan]

I also have the exact same problem as @davidroeca.

I found a work around. In your Dockerfile:

# Initialize an empty git repo.
RUN git init /fakegit

# Tell git to use that repo instead of the .git file in the submodule.
ENV GIT_DIR=/fakegit/.git

Ig you're using docker compose just add the env var to environment:

environment:
  GIT_DIR: /fakegit/.git