In the world of git, we're not scared about internal implementation
details, and sometimes we like to dive in and tweak things by hand. Here's
some documentation to that end.

## `.git/annex/objects/aa/bb/*/*`

This is where locally available file contents are actually stored.
Files added to the annex get a symlink checked into git that points
to the file content.

First there are two levels of directories used for hashing, to prevent
too many things ending up in any one directory.
See [[hashing]] for details.

Each subdirectory has the [[name_of_a_key|key_format]] in one of the
[[key-value_backends|backends]]. The file inside also has the name of the key.
This two-level structure is used because it allows the write bit to be removed
from the subdirectories as well as from the files. That prevents accidentially
deleting or changing the file contents. See [[lockdown]] for details.

In [[direct_mode]], file contents are not stored in here, and instead
are stored directly in the file. However, the same symlinks are still
committed to git, internally.

Also in [[direct_mode]], some additional data is stored in these directories.
`.cache` files contain cached file stats used in detecting when a file has
changed, and `.map` files contain a list of file(s) in the work directory
that contain the key.

## The git-annex branch

This branch is managed by git-annex, with the contents listed below.

The file `.git/annex/index` is a separate git index file it uses
to accumulate changes for the git-annex branch.
Also, `.git/annex/journal/` is used to record changes before they
are added to git.

This branch operates on objects exclusively. No file names will ever
be stored in this branch.

The files stored in this branch are all designed to be auto-merged
using git's [[union merge driver|git-union-merge]]. So each line
has a timestamp, to allow the most recent information to be identified.

### `uuid.log`

Records the UUIDs of known repositories, and associates them with a
description of the repository. This allows git-annex to display something
more useful than a UUID when it refers to a repository that does not have
a configured git remote pointing at it.

The file format is simply one line per repository, with the uuid followed by a
space and then the description, followed by a timestamp. Example:

	e605dca6-446a-11e0-8b2a-002170d25c55 laptop timestamp=1317929189.157237s
	26339d22-446b-11e0-9101-002170d25c55 usb disk timestamp=1317929330.769997s

## `numcopies.log`

Records the global numcopies setting.

The file format is simply a timestamp followed by a number.

## `remote.log`

Holds persistent configuration settings for [[special_remotes]] such as
Amazon S3.

The file format is one line per remote, starting with the uuid of the
remote, followed by a space, and then a series of var=value pairs,
each separated by whitespace, and finally a timestamp.

Encrypted special remotes store their encryption key here,
in the "cipher" value. It is base64 encoded, and unless shared [[encryption]]
is used, is encrypted to one or more gpg keys. The first 256 bytes of
the cipher is used as the HMAC SHA1 encryption key, to encrypt filenames
stored on the special remote. The remainder of the cipher is used as a gpg
symmetric encryption key, to encrypt the content of files stored on the special
remote.

## `trust.log`

Records the [[trust]] information for repositories. Does not exist unless
[[trust]] values are configured.

The file format is one line per repository, with the uuid followed by a
space, and then either `1` (trusted), `0` (untrusted), `?` (semi-trusted),
`X` (dead) and finally a timestamp.

Example:

	e605dca6-446a-11e0-8b2a-002170d25c55 1 timestamp=1317929189.157237s
	26339d22-446b-11e0-9101-002170d25c55 ? timestamp=1317929330.769997s

Repositories not listed are semi-trusted.

## `group.log`

Used to group repositories together.

The file format is one line per repository, with the uuid followed by a space,
and then a space-separated list of groups this repository is part of,
and finally a timestamp.

## `preferred-content.log`

Used to indicate which repositories prefer to contain which file contents.

The file format is one line per repository, with the uuid followed by a space,
then a boolean expression, and finally a timestamp.

Files matching the expression are preferred to be retained in the
repository, while files not matching it are preferred to be stored
somewhere else.

## `aaa/bbb/*.log`

These log files record [[location_tracking]] information
for file contents. These are placed in two levels of subdirectories
for hashing. See [[hashing]] for details.

The name of the key is the filename, and the content
consists of a timestamp, either 1 (present) or 0 (not present), and
the UUID of the repository that has or lacks the file content.

Example:

	1287290776.765152s 1 e605dca6-446a-11e0-8b2a-002170d25c55
	1287290767.478634s 0 26339d22-446b-11e0-9101-002170d25c55

## `aaa/bbb/*.log.web`

These log files record urls used by the
[[web_special_remote|special_remotes/web]]. Their format is similar
to the location tracking files, but with urls rather than UUIDs.

## `aaa/bbb/*.log.rmt`

These log files are used by remotes that need to record their own state
about keys. Each remote can store one line of data about a key, in
its own format.

Example:

	1287290776.765152s e605dca6-446a-11e0-8b2a-002170d25c55 blah blah
	1287290767.478634s 26339d22-446b-11e0-9101-002170d25c55 foo=bar

## `schedule.log`

Used to record scheduled events, such as periodic fscks.

The file format is simply one line per repository, with the uuid followed by a
space and then its schedule, followed by a timestamp.

There can be multiple events in the schedule, separated by "; "

The format of the scheduled events is the same described in
the SCHEDULED JOBS section of the man page.

Example:

	42bf2035-0636-461d-a367-49e9dfd361dd fsck self 30m every day at any time; fsck 4b3ebc86-0faf-4892-83c5-ce00cbe30f0a 1h every year at any time timestamp=1385646997.053162s

## `transitions.log`

Used to record transitions, eg by `git annex forget`

Each line of the file is a transition, followed by a timestamp.

Example:

	ForgetGitHistory 1387325539.685136s
	ForgetDeadRemotes 1387325539.685136s