diff --git a/doc/todo/Recent_remote_activities.mdwn b/doc/todo/Recent_remote_activities.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..15d801c260 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/todo/Recent_remote_activities.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +It would be great to have a way to find out when a remote was last "active" and what happened. This can help with: + +- knowing which remotes can safely be marked "dead", as it didn't "do" anything for the last 10 years +- finding out what exactly a repository is or where it was, if the (auto-generated) description isn't helpful +- double-checking if one's setup indeed does the expected, puts files where they should go, etc. +- maybe for sorting the remotes in `git annex info` by a `last contact` time? (see also here, sorting by description would already be cool and better than sorting by UUID, which is random: https://git-annex.branchable.com/todo/Sorting_remotes_by_description_in___96__git_annex_info__96__/) + +For a specific file, one can already get an activity log for a specific remote with `git annex log`: + +[[!format bash """ +git annex log thatfile.pdf | grep 5091aa91-fb08-44b1-aece-7406257103f8 +# + Mon, 27 Mar 2023 21:39:07 CEST thatfile.pdf | 5091aa91-fb08-44b1-aece-7406257103f8 -- ThatRemoteName +"""]] + +But that is very slow and doesn't scale at all for considering all files. + +There's also the `activity.log` in the git-annex branch, which AFAIK currently only logs `git annex fsck` invocation timestamps: + +[[!format bash """ +git annex log thatfile.pdf | grep 091aa91-fb08-44b1-aece-7406257103f8 +# 091aa91-fb08-44b1-aece-7406257103f8 Fsck timestamp=1743873054s +# ... +"""]] + +The commit messages on the git-annex branch don't include the remote's ID (which might be helpful but hogs disk space?), so that can't be used to inspect activity - one doesn't know who did the commit. + +Any ideas how this could be done? + +Cheers, Yann