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Findings

Minimal Bandwidth Git Commit Date Fetch

Problem: Need to check if a repo had commits in the past 2 years without cloning or hitting API rate limits.

Solution: git fetch --depth=1 --filter=blob:none

git init -q /tmp/r
git -C /tmp/r fetch --depth=1 --filter=blob:none https://github.com/OWNER/REPO.git HEAD
git -C /tmp/r show -s --format=%ci FETCH_HEAD

What gets fetched:

  • 1 commit object
  • Tree objects (directory structure only)
  • NO blobs (file contents)

Bandwidth: ~20-30KB per repo

Why this works:

  • --depth=1 = no parent commits (no history)
  • --filter=blob:none = skip file contents, only metadata
  • Commit date lives in commit object, which we do fetch

Comparison:

Method Bandwidth Rate Limited
git fetch --depth=1 (no filter) ~1MB+ No
git fetch --depth=1 --filter=blob:none ~20-30KB No
GitHub API /repos/{owner}/{repo} ~5KB Yes (5K/hr)
git ls-remote ~1KB No

ls-remote is cheapest but gives no dates. Filter fetch is the sweet spot for date checking without API limits.