jj/docs/windows.md

Working on Windows

Jujutsu works the same on all platforms, but there are some caveats that Windows users should be aware of.

Line endings are not converted

Jujutsu does not currently honor .gitattributes and does not have a setting like Git's core.autocrlf. This means that line endings will be checked out exactly as they are committed and committed exactly as authored. This is true on all platforms, but Windows users are most likely to miss CRLF conversion.

If your Git repository expects Windows users to have core.autocrlf set to true, then the files are committed with LF line endings but are checked out with CRLF line endings. Jujutsu doesn't understand this and will convert the committed line endings to CRLF.

After creating a colocated repository on Windows, you most likely want to set core.autocrlf to input, then jj abandon to convert all files on disk to LF line endings:

PS> git config core.autocrlf input

# Abandoning the working copy will cause Jujutsu to overwrite all files with
# CRLF line endings with the line endings they are committed with, probably LF
PS> jj abandon

This setting ensures Git will check out files with LF line endings without converting them to CRLF. You'll want to make sure any tooling you use, especially IDEs, preserve LF line endings.

Pagination

On Windows, jj will use its integrated pager called minus by default, unless the environment variable %PAGER% or the config ui.pager is explicitly set. See the pager section of the config docs for more details.

If the built-in pager doesn't meet your needs and you have Git installed, you can switch to using Git's pager as follows:

PS> jj config set --user ui.pager '["C:\\Program Files\\Git\\usr\\bin\\less.exe", "-FRX"]'
PS> jj config set --user ui.paginate auto

Typing @ in PowerShell

PowerShell uses @ as part the array sub-expression operator, so it often needs to be escaped or quoted in commands:

PS> jj log -r `@
PS> jj log -r '@'

One solution is to create a revset alias. For example, to make HEAD an alias for @:

PS> jj config set --user revset-aliases.HEAD '@'
PS> jj log -r HEAD

WSL sets the execute bit on all files

When viewing a Windows drive from WSL (via /mnt/c or a similar path), Windows exposes all files with the execute bit set. Since Jujutsu automatically records changes to the working copy, this sets the execute bit on all files committed in your repository.

If you only need to access the repository in WSL, the best solution is to clone the repository in the Linux file system (for example, in ~/my-repo).

If you need to use the repository in both WSL and Windows, one solution is to create a workspace in the Linux file system:

PS> jj workspace add --name wsl ~/my-repo

Then only use the ~/my-repo workspace from Linux.

Symbolic link support

jj supports symlinks on Windows only when they are enabled by the operating system. This requires Windows 10 version 14972 or higher, as well as Developer Mode. If those conditions are not satisfied, jj will materialize symlinks as ordinary files.

For colocated repositories, Git support must also be enabled using the git config option core.symlinks=true.