git filter things

the overloaded word filter in git

git filter-branch

git-filter-branch oldest (and not recommended) tool here for rewriting history. Maybe still useful in some cases?

git filter-repo

git-filter-repo Python script that's faster than filter-branch and does mostly the same stuff. Use to: repo->subdirectory, subdirectory->repo, remove file from history, ...

git clone --filter

docs in man git-rev-list Object traversal. --filter=blob:none skips copying the actual files (blobs), retrieving them on-demand with other commands, eg checkout <ref> -- <path>. --filter=tree:0 skips blobs and trees (things that hold the blobs together eg directories).

Right now the main gains are in (really) big repos since the on-demand checkout is sequentially per file.