Cit is a high-integrity version control system written in C. It provides a secure and verifiable local version control experience by employing SHA-256 content addressing, hierarchical Merkle trees, and advanced storage optimizations.
- Data Integrity: Mandatory SHA-256 identification for all objects (blobs, trees, and commits).
- Architecture: Hierarchical Merkle tree structure for efficient directory-level hashing and state management. Unlike flat-index systems, Cit trees are nested objects that mirrors the filesystem hierarchy.
- Storage Optimization:
- Cit-LZ Compression: Proprietary hybrid LZSS + Range Coder engine for high-ratio data compression.
- Recursive Delta Encoding: Binary delta support for blobs, significantly reducing the storage footprint for versioned files with incremental changes.
- Security: Centralized path normalization and transactional object creation with automatic rollback on failure to maintain repository consistency.
- Portability: POSIX-compliant implementation supporting Linux, macOS, Android (Termux), and Windows (via compatibility wrappers).
To compile Cit, ensure that the GCC compiler, Make, and the zlib development library are installed on your system.
makeThe compiled binary will be located in the build/ directory.
To use Cit from any directory, move the compiled binary to a location in your system's execution path.
For Linux, macOS, or Termux:
# Move the binary to a standard local bin directory
mkdir -p ~/bin
cp build/cit ~/bin/
# Ensure ~/bin is in your shell's PATH
export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"Before performing commit operations, configure your global identity:
cit config -u "Full Name"
cit config -e "email@example.com"-h, --help: Show help message.-v, --version: Show version information defined insrc/version.h.
cit init: Initialize a new Cit repository in the current directory.cit clone <url>: Clone an external repository (libcurl-powered).
cit add <file>: Stage file contents for the next commit.cit status: Display the working tree status and staged changes.
cit commit <message>: Record a new snapshot of staged changes.cit log: View commit history with SHA-256 identifiers.cit show <sha>: Display detailed information about a specific object.
cit branch: List, create, or delete branches.cit checkout <branch|sha>: Switch branches or restore working tree files via recursive tree traversal.cit diff: Show changes between commits, commit and working tree, or staged and unstaged files.
cit reset: Reset current HEAD to a specified state.
The Cit core is modularized into several key components:
core/object: Manages the lifecycle of blobs, hierarchical trees, and commits.core/compress: Implements the Cit-LZ compression and delta encoding logic.core/index: Manages the staging area with strict path normalization.core/refs: Handles branch pointers and HEAD resolution.
This project is licensed under the MIT License.