The git-rexec command-line tool recursively locates Git repositories within a directory and executes commands against them, either sequentially or in parallel.
Here are examples demonstrating how to use git-rexec:
Example 1: Execute git status -s across all discovered Git repositories (found by searching recursively under the current working directory) in parallel (-p or --parallel):
git-rexec -p -- git status -s
Example 2: Fetch updates across all discovered repositories, limiting the concurrency to 5 background jobs (-j 5), which helps avoid network congestion or server rate limits when communicating with upstream Git remotes:
git-rexec -j 5 --parallel -- git fetch
Example 3: Include sub-repositories (e.g., Git worktrees and submodules) alongside standard Git repositories during discovery (-s or --include-sub-repos), and execute git status against them:
git-rexec -s -p -- git status
Example 4: Target a specific base directory (~/projects) using the -C flag to recursively discover repositories within it, while explicitly excluding a specific subfolder (~/projects/archive). This example executes git status -s in parallel for all discovered repositories except those within the excluded path:
git-rexec -C ~/projects --exclude-dir ~/projects/archive --parallel -- git status -s
Example 5: Evaluate whether a README.md file exists in the repository (sh -c "test -f README.md"). If the condition returns an exit status of 0 (success), it counts the number of lines in that file (wc -l README.md):
git-rexec --if-exec 'sh -c "test -f README.md"' --parallel -- wc -l README.md
Example 6: Print the paths of all discovered Git repositories:
git-rexec --print
If this helps your workflow, please support the project by ⭐ starring git-rexec on GitHub and sharing it on your website, blog, Mastodon, Reddit, X, LinkedIn, or other social media platforms to help more Git users discover its benefits.
Features
- Recursively discover Git repositories starting from a specified root directory.
- Optional flag to include sub-repositories (e.g., Git worktrees and submodules) in the execution target list.
- Execute shell commands across multiple repositories in parallel using worker threads.
- Filter target repositories based on the exit code of a conditional check (
--if-exec). - Exclude specific directories from the search path.
- Export discovered repository paths for integration with other shell tools (using
--printor--print0).
Installation
Method 1: Manual Installation (System-wide)
Download the git-rexec script, make it executable, and copy it to a directory in your system PATH (e.g., /usr/local/bin):
sudo cp git-rexec /usr/local/bin/
Method 2: Installation via pip
Install the package directly from the Git repository using pip:
pip install --user git-rexec
Dependencies
System Dependencies
git: Required for repository validation and execution.
Python Dependencies (Optional)
colorama: Provides color-coded terminal output.setproctitle: Sets the process title for process monitoring tools.
You can install the optional Python dependencies via pip:
pip install colorama setproctitle
Usage
git-rexec [OPTIONS] -- [exec_cmd ...]
(Assuming the git-rexec script is executable and in your PATH.)
Positional Arguments
exec_cmd: The shell command to execute within each discovered Git repository. You can use--to pass options directly to the command. If omitted, the script simply prints the paths of the discovered repositories.
Options
usage: git-rexec [-h] [-C DIRECTORY] [--exclude-dir EXCLUDE_DIR] [-p] [-i IF_EXEC] [-j MAX_WORKERS] [-q] [-s] [--print] [--print0] [exec_cmd ...]
Find Git repositories and execute commands against them in parallel.
positional arguments:
exec_cmd The command to execute. You can use -- to pass options.
options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-C, --directory DIRECTORY
Root directory to search (defaults to current directory)
--exclude-dir EXCLUDE_DIR
Exclude a specific directory and all of its subdirectories
-p, --parallel Execute the command in parallel using threads
-i, --if-exec IF_EXEC
Execute commands only if this check returns exit code 0.
-j, --jobs MAX_WORKERS
Maximum number of processors/workers to use
-q, --quiet Quiet mode. Suppresses the informational log prefixes ([EXEC] and [EXEC-P]) that precede execution output.
-s, --include-sub-repos
Include sub-repositories (e.g., Git worktrees and submodules)
--print Print the paths (only when no command is provided)
--print0 Separate the paths with a null character (only when no command is provided)
License
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
Copyright (C) 2019-2026 James Cherti.
