Move internal state dir to 'common' subdir in git path. (Fixes bug with multiple worktrees)

[morganwahl]

This allows unlocked repos to work correctly with multiple worktrees.

When doing git worktree add newtree2 in an "unlocked" repo, I get the following output and creating the new worktree fails.

Preparing worktree (new branch 'newtree2')
git-crypt: Error: Unable to open key file - have you unlocked/initialized this repository yet?
error: external filter '"/usr/bin/git-crypt" smudge' failed 1
error: external filter '"/usr/bin/git-crypt" smudge' failed
fatal: env/docker-all.secret-env: smudge filter git-crypt failed

By putting strace in front of the smudge command in .git/config, I see:

openat(AT_FDCWD, "/home/morgan/Development/dev1/.git/worktrees/newtree2/git-crypt/keys/default", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)

Git is calling the smudge command when checking out the new working tree, which then fails to find the key file because git rev-parse uses a separate dir for each worktree. Hence the worktrees/newtree2 in the path. The command fails because there is no git-crypt dir in .git/worktrees/newtree2.

git rev-parse --git-path should be used instead of git rev-parse --git-dir, based on https://git-scm.com/docs/git-worktree#_details :

See gitrepository-layout[5] for more information. The rule of thumb is do not make any assumption about whether a path belongs to $GIT_DIR or $GIT_COMMON_DIR when you need to directly access something inside $GIT_DIR. Use git rev-parse --git-path to get the final path.

More importantly, git-crypt should be using the common subdir of the git dir to store in-use keys, since those need to be shared across workdirs. https://git-scm.com/docs/gitrepository-layout#Documentation/gitrepository-layout.txt-common

[baguilarq]

Hope we have response from the maintainers

[alerque]

@AGWA Any chance this can get reviewed and included? I'm starting to use more worktree based things myself and this needs to be fixed.

[maxisam]

I created a build here. https://github.com/maxisam/git-crypt/actions/runs/11787683064

It works great and also works with this #105

[jwaldrip]

Any chance we can get this merged soon?

[kqvanity]

I applied this patch, but still facing the same issue. Being unable to create a workree in an unlocked state.

 $ git worktree add newtree2
Preparing worktree (checking out 'newtree2')
git-crypt: Error: Unable to open key file - have you unlocked/initialized this repository yet?
error: external filter '"git-crypt" smudge' failed 1
error: external filter '"git-crypt" smudge' failed
fatal: .config/gh/.env: smudge filter git-crypt failed

 $ uname -a
Linux nixos 6.6.76 #1-NixOS SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sat Feb  8 08:52:39 UTC 2025 x86_64 GNU/Linux

 $ ls /nix/store | grep --ignore-case 'git-crypt-0.7.0$'
14xknggr1bqwqpcia8dqgjp4l4s8yi73-git-crypt-0.7.0

[SAGV]

Oh, would be so nice to have it merged so we can run multiple Claude sessions on our project…

[franzwilhelm]

I just sent this to @AGWA on email, hoping to get a review and merge :)

Hi Andrew!

Really loving git-crypt and my organization is using it for all of our major repos to encrypt .env files and more for local dev!

That being said - for the first time I find myself considering moving away from it due to its lack of compatibility with git-worktrees. 

Why are worktrees important? - Claude code, Cursor, and all major agentic frameworks now use worktrees to run agents in parallel. Without worktrees, developers using git-crypt cannot fully utilise this behavior.
The following PR contains a patch that lets git-crypt work with worktrees https://github.com/AGWA/git-crypt/pull/222

Could you please have a look and make a new git-crypt release to all distributions so everyone could benefit? Thank you so much

Best
Franz von der Lippe
@franzwilhelm (github)