Run git pull over all subdirectories

How can I update multiple git repositories from their shared parent's directory without cd'ing into each repo's root directory? I have the following which are all separate git repositories (not submodules):

/plugins/cms
/plugins/admin
/plugins/chart

I want to update them all at once or at least simplify my current workflow:

cd ~/plugins/admin
git pull origin master
cd ../chart
git pull

etc.

Run the following from the parent directory, plugins in this case:

find . -type d -depth 1 -exec git --git-dir={}/.git --work-tree=$PWD/{} pull origin master \;

To clarify:

• find . searches the current directory
• -type d to find directories, not files
• -depth 1 for a maximum depth of one sub-directory
• -exec {} \; runs a custom command for every find
• git --git-dir={}/.git --work-tree=$PWD/{} pull git pulls the individual directories

To play around with find, I recommend using echo after -exec to preview, e.g.:

find . -type d -depth 1 -exec echo git --git-dir={}/.git --work-tree=$PWD/{} status \;

Note: if the -depth 1 option is not available, try -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1.

ls | xargs -I{} git -C {} pull

To do it in parallel:

ls | xargs -P10 -I{} git -C {} pull

A bit more low-tech than leo's solution:

for i in */.git; do ( echo $i; cd $i/..; git pull; ); done

This will update all Git repositories in your working directory. No need to explicitly list their names ("cms", "admin", "chart"). The "cd" command only affects a subshell (spawned using the parenthesis).

Actually, if you don't know if the subfolders have a git repo or not, the best would be to let find get the repos for you:

find . -type d -name .git -exec git --git-dir={} --work-tree=$PWD/{}/.. pull origin master \;

The PowerShell equivalent would be:

Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Directory -Hidden -Filter .git | ForEach-Object { & git --git-dir="$($_.FullName)" --work-tree="$(Split-Path $_.FullName -Parent)" pull origin master }

I use this one:

find . -name ".git" -type d | sed 's/\/.git//' |  xargs -P10 -I{} git -C {} pull

Universal: Updates all git repositories that are below current directory.

This should happen automatically, so long as cms, admin and chart are all parts of the repository.

A likely issue is that each of these plugins is a git submodule.

Run git help submodule for more information.

EDIT

For doing this in bash:

cd plugins
for f in cms admin chart
do 
  cd $f && git pull origin master && cd ..
done

The mr utility (a.k.a., myrepos) provides an outstanding solution to this very problem. Install it using your favorite package manager, or just grab the mr script directly from github and put it in $HOME/bin or somewhere else on your PATH. Then, cd to the parent plugins folder shared by these repos and create a basic .mrconfig file with contents similar to the following (adjusting the URLs as needed):

# File: .mrconfig
[cms]
checkout = git clone 'https://<username>@github.com/<username>/cms' 'cms'

[admin]
checkout = git clone 'https://<username>@github.com/<username>/admin' 'admin'

[chart]
checkout = git clone 'https://<username>@github.com/<username>/chart' 'chart'

After that, you can run mr up from the top level plugins folder to pull updates from each repository. (Note that this will also do the initial clone if the target working copy doesn't yet exist.) Other commands you can execute include mr st, mr push, mr log, mr diff, etc—run mr help to see what's possible. There's a mr run command that acts as a pass-through, allowing you to access VCS commands not directly suported by mr itself (e.g., mr run git tag STAGING_081220015). And you can even create your own custom commands that execute arbitrary bits of shell script targeting all repos!

mr is an extremely useful tool for dealing with multiple repos. Since the plugins folder is in your home directory, you might also be interested in vcsh. Together with mr, it provides a powerful mechanism for managing all of your configuration files. See this blog post by Thomas Ferris Nicolaisen for an overview.

Most compact method, assuming all sub-dirs are git repos:

ls | parallel git -C {} pull

None of the top 5 answers worked for me, and the question talked about directories.

This worked:

for d in *; do pushd $d && git pull && popd; done

My humble construction that

• shows the current path (using python, convenient and just works, see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5265702/how-to-get-full-path-of-a-file)
• looks directly for .git subfolder: low chance to emit a git command in a non-git subfolder
• gets rid of some warnings of find

as follow:

find . \
    -maxdepth 2 -type d \
    -name ".git" \
    -execdir python -c 'import os; print(os.path.abspath("."))' \; \
    -execdir git pull \;

Of course, you may add other git commands with additional -execdir options to find, displaying the branch for instance:

find . \
    -maxdepth 2 -type d \
    -name ".git" \
    -execdir python -c 'import os; print(os.path.abspath("."))' \; \
    -execdir git branch \;
    -execdir git pull \;

gitfox is a tool to execute command on all subrepos

npm install gitfox -g
g pull

You can try this

find . -type d -name .git -exec sh -c "cd \"{}\"/../ && pwd && git pull" \;

Also, you can add your customized output by adding one more && argument like.

find . -type d -name .git -exec sh -c "cd \"{}\"/../ && pwd && git pull && git status" \;

I combined points from several comments and answers:

find . -maxdepth 1 -type d -name .git -execdir git pull \;

I use this

for dir in $(find . -name ".git")
do cd ${dir%/*}
	echo $PWD
	git pull
	echo ""
	cd - > /dev/null
done

Github

Original answer 2010:

If all of those directories are separate git repo, you should reference them as submodules.

That means your "origin" would be that remote repo 'plugins' which only contains references to subrepos 'cms', 'admin', 'chart'.

A git pull followed by a git submodule update would achieve what your are looking for.

---

Update January 2016:

With Git 2.8 (Q1 2016), you will be able to fetch submodules in parallel (!) with git fetch --recurse-submodules -j2.
See "How to speed up / parallelize downloads of git submodules using git clone --recursive?"

If you have a lot of subdirs with git repositories, you can use parallel

ls | parallel -I{} -j100 '
  if [ -d {}/.git ]; then
    echo Pulling {}
    git -C {} pull > /dev/null && echo "pulled" || echo "error :("
  else
     echo {} is not a .git directory
  fi
'