git-fsmonitor--daemon(1) Git Manual git-fsmonitor--daemon(1)
NAME
git-fsmonitor--daemon - A Built-in Filesystem Monitor
SYNOPSIS
git fsmonitor--daemon start
git fsmonitor--daemon run
git fsmonitor--daemon stop
git fsmonitor--daemon status
DESCRIPTION
A daemon to watch the working directory for file and directory changes
using platform-specific filesystem notification facilities.
This daemon communicates directly with commands like git status using
the simple IPC[1] interface instead of the slower githooks(5)
interface.
This daemon is built into Git so that no third-party tools are
required.
OPTIONS
start
Starts a daemon in the background.
run
Runs a daemon in the foreground.
stop
Stops the daemon running in the current working directory, if
present.
status
Exits with zero status if a daemon is watching the current working
directory.
REMARKS
This daemon is a long running process used to watch a single working
directory and maintain a list of the recently changed files and
directories. Performance of commands such as git status can be
increased if they just ask for a summary of changes to the working
directory and can avoid scanning the disk.
When core.fsmonitor is set to true (see git-config(1)) commands, such
as git status, will ask the daemon for changes and automatically start
it (if necessary).
For more information see the "File System Monitor" section in git-
update-index(1).
CAVEATS
The fsmonitor daemon does not currently know about submodules and does
not know to filter out filesystem events that happen within a
submodule. If fsmonitor daemon is watching a super repo and a file is
modified within the working directory of a submodule, it will report
the change (as happening against the super repo). However, the client
will properly ignore these extra events, so performance may be affected
but it will not cause an incorrect result.
By default, the fsmonitor daemon refuses to work with network-mounted
repositories; this may be overridden by setting fsmonitor.allowRemote
to true. Note, however, that the fsmonitor daemon is not guaranteed to
work correctly with all network-mounted repositories, so such use is
considered experimental.
On Mac OS and Linux, the inter-process communication (IPC) between
various Git commands and the fsmonitor daemon is done via a Unix domain
socket (UDS) -- a special type of file -- which is supported by native
Mac OS and Linux filesystems, but not on network-mounted filesystems,
NTFS, or FAT32. Other filesystems may or may not have the needed
support; the fsmonitor daemon is not guaranteed to work with these
filesystems and such use is considered experimental.
By default, the socket is created in the .git directory. However, if
the .git directory is on a network-mounted filesystem, it will instead
be created at $HOME/.git-fsmonitor-* unless $HOME itself is on a
network-mounted filesystem, in which case you must set the
configuration variable fsmonitor.socketDir to the path of a directory
on a native filesystem in which to create the socket file.
If none of the above directories (.git, $HOME, or fsmonitor.socketDir)
is on a native filesystem the fsmonitor daemon will report an error
that will cause the daemon and the currently running command to exit.
LINUX CAVEATS
On Linux, the fsmonitor daemon uses inotify to monitor filesystem
events. The inotify system has per-user limits on the number of watches
that can be created. The default limit is typically 8192 watches per
user.
For large repositories with many directories, you may need to increase
this limit. Check the current limit with:
cat /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches
To temporarily increase the limit:
sudo sysctl fs.inotify.max_user_watches=65536
To make the change permanent, add to /etc/sysctl.conf:
fs.inotify.max_user_watches=65536
CONFIGURATION
Everything below this line in this section is selectively included from
the git-config(1) documentation. The content is the same as what's
found there:
fsmonitor.allowRemote
By default, the fsmonitor daemon refuses to work with
network-mounted repositories. Setting fsmonitor.allowRemote to true
overrides this behavior. Only respected when core.fsmonitor is set
to true.
fsmonitor.socketDir
This Mac OS and Linux-specific option, if set, specifies the
directory in which to create the Unix domain socket used for
communication between the fsmonitor daemon and various Git
commands. The directory must reside on a native filesystem. Only
respected when core.fsmonitor is set to true.
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
NOTES
1. simple IPC
git-htmldocs/technical/api-simple-ipc.html
Git 2.55.0 2026-06-29 git-fsmonitor--daemon(1)
git 2.55.0 - Generated Wed Jul 1 09:24:38 CDT 2026