The bridge across repositories

Why?

Have a bunch of repos you maintain?
Do you jump around them a bunch?
Wish you could get a bird’s eye view of all of them?
Are some dependent on others?

If any one of those answers is a “yes” I suggest you check out arc.

Install

Linux (musl amd64 / arm64):

curl -fsSL https://gitlab.com/ballast-dev/arc/-/raw/main/install/get_arc.sh | sh

Or download arc-linux-amd64 / arc-linux-arm64 from releases.

macOS and Windows binaries are not published from CI; build from source with cargo build --release.

Features:

Multi-repo workspace — manage many git repos from one arc.toml
TOML config — per-repo path, url, required remote, and dependencies
Config discovery — walks up from CWD for arc.toml, or --config <PATH> (file or directory)
Paths next door or below arc.toml — relative descendants or absolute; .. is skipped with a warning
Per-repo remotes — each repo names the remote used for fetch/reset/default-branch
Dependency-aware checkout — arc checkout is status for CWD + deps; arc checkout BRANCH aligns that tree (git checkout --track). A dep without BRANCH stays on HEAD or its default branch. --repo PATH selects another tree from any CWD.
Bird’s-eye status — ahead/behind, dirty/staged/untracked markers; -v for file detail; --fetch to refresh
Terminal-aware layout — path columns pad when wide, truncate with .. when narrow
Bulk pull / fetch / sync — across every configured repo
Clone — clone all repos from config; skips worktrees that already exist
Init — write a starter arc.toml (arc init [PATH])
Reset — hard reset to {remote}/<default>; -y/--yes skips the prompt; -s/--sanitize clears the index cache
Cross-repo shell — -c <cmd>... runs any command in every repo
Cross-repo git — -g <args>... runs git … in every repo
--only PATH [PATH...] — exact path values from arc.toml
--sort — alphanumeric by path (default: listed order in arc.toml)
--jobs N / -j — parallel work (default: CPU count). Streaming commands prefix lines like Compose (name | …). Use --jobs 1 if git asks for credentials.
Show config — pretty-print loaded repos, URLs, and deps
Completions — arc completions bash|zsh|fish
Live config — re-read arc.toml every run

NOTE: arc anchors on the location of arc.toml (or the path given by --config). Bare arc runs status.

USAGE:
    arc [OPTIONS] [SUBCOMMAND]

OPTIONS:
    --config <PATH>        Path to arc.toml or the directory that contains it
    --only <PATH>...       Only these repo paths (exact match)
    --repo <PATH>          Select a repo by exact path (checkout tree root)
    --sort                 Alphanumeric by path (default: arc.toml order)
    -j, --jobs <N>         Parallel jobs (default: CPU count)
    --color <WHEN>         auto | always | never (also honors NO_COLOR)
    -c <COMMAND>...        Invoke any command across all repos
    -g <COMMAND>...        Invoke any git command across all repos
    -h, --help             Print help
    -V, --version          Print version

SUBCOMMANDS:
    checkout      Tree status (no args) or align CWD/deps onto BRANCH
    clone         Clone all repos defined in arc.toml
    completions   Generate shell completions
    fetch         Fetch from each repo's configured remote
    help          Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)
    init          Write a starter arc.toml to cwd or PATH
    pull          Fetch and merge on current branch
    reset         Reset worktree to remote default branch (-s/--sanitize, -y/--yes)
    show          Display current configuration
    status        Show status of all repos (-v/--verbose, --fetch)
    sync          Checkout default branch and pull

Credential Manager

Pick your poison

Windows
- install the latest Git Credential Manager
Linux/Mac

git config —global credential.helper cache git config —global credential.helper “store —file=~/.my-credentials”
The credential helper command will store credentials for 15 mins. Passing the --file argument will store your credentials permanently, however they are in plain text. For more info look at the git-docs

Example:

[[repo]]
path = "path/arc"
url = "http://domain"
remote = "origin"
dependencies = []

[[repo]]
path = "path/other"
remote = "upstream"
url = "http://other.domain"
dependencies = ["path/arc"]

Workflow

Along with easing development by automating synchronization of the entire project, arc can prove useful as a workflow tool. Developers working on a project push to their specific branches and send a merge request to the maintainer when the issue is complete.