Working with Large Git Repositories Using Sparse Checkout

Git sparse-checkout is a powerful feature that lets you work with specific parts of large repositories without populating the working tree with the full set of files.

Basic Sparse Checkout for Monorepos

When working with a large monorepo but only needing specific directories, you can use sparse-checkout to check out just what you need:

git sparse-checkout init
git sparse-checkout set '/*/' '!/*' '/dir1' '/dir2'

This configuration will only check out the dir1 and dir2 directories, ignoring everything else. It's particularly useful when contributing to large projects where you only need access to specific components.

Excluding Specific Directories

Sometimes you want everything except certain directories. For example, to prevent Git from checking out .vscode settings (avoiding conflicts with local settings):

git sparse-checkout init --cone
git sparse-checkout set '/*' '!/.vscode'

The --cone mode provides a simpler pattern matching system optimized for including/excluding whole directory trees.

Combining with Shallow Clones

For maximum efficiency, you can combine sparse-checkout with shallow clones. This approach saves both network bandwidth and disk space since you'll only download the recent history:

git init
git sparse-checkout init
git sparse-checkout set '/path/to/needed/directory'

git remote add origin <repository-url>
git fetch --depth=1 origin main
git checkout -b main --track origin/main

This combination is perfect for quick contributions to large projects when you don't need the full repository history.