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Mount and Explore

A typical Git workflow involves cloning an existing code repository and making edits. This is fast, easy, and efficient because code takes relatively little space. For XetHub users working with larger repositories, however, significant download times and memory limitations hurt developer velocity. XetHub offers a local file system mount option as well as a web file explorer to provide quick ways to access and understand the contents of a repository.

Xet mount exploration​

Xet mount allows you to instantly gain read-only access a Xet repository as if it was a folder on your machine, regardless of its size. Use your favorite local tools to explore any repository at any commit.

To try this out, use the following command from the CLI to mount our copy of the CalTech Birds Image Similarity dataset: 

git xet mount xet@xethub.com:XetHub/CalTechBirds.git

You can also find this command under the Mount button of any repository: Screenshot of where the Xet mount button is located in the XetHub UI

Running the command will result in the following output:

Mounting to "/CalTechBirds"
Cloning into temporary directory "/var/folders/jy/1px5ktln3nd4sftv1bjxx2vc0000gn/T/.tmpFGPwsC"
Mounting as a background task...
Setting up mount point...
12012 objects mounted
Mount at "/CalTechBirds" successful. Unmount with 'umount "/CalTechBirds"'
Mount complete in 2.534868s

In seconds, you've gotten access to a 1.2 GiB repository! Crested_Auklet_0011_794927 is one of our favorites — see if you can find it.

See the full documentation for more ways to leverage mount.

Repository file explorer​

Want to explore a repository before mounting or cloning? Use XetHub's convenient file explorer from the web UI, which shows up on full-width desktop views.

Navigate to the CalTech Birds Image Similarity repository and find our friend Crested_Auklet_0011_794927 again using the left file browser pane. To expand and collapse folders, click on the folder icon. To navigate the page to a folder, click on the folder name.

Screenshot of CalTech Birds repository with left hand file browser

While the traditional file list is always included at the bottom of every view, this convenient file explorer makes it easy to quickly browse the contents of a repository.