What causes "Lazygit does not support bare repos." in jesseduffield/lazygit?

Open a normal (non-bare) clone or attach a worktree to the bare repo and open lazygit there

Lazygit does not support bare repos.

Error message

Lazygit does not support bare repos.

What it means

Returned by NewGitCommand when GetRepoPaths reports core.bare=true. A bare repo has no worktree, and every lazygit feature (status, staging, commits panel) operates on a worktree, so there is nothing it can offer. Callers like app.setupRepo normally intercept this earlier to suggest creating a clone/worktree; reaching this error means that path was unavailable, e.g. lazygit was launched with --git-dir pointing at a bare repo.

Source

Thrown at pkg/commands/git.go:75

}

func NewGitCommand(
	cmn *common.Common,
	version *git_commands.GitVersion,
	osCommand *oscommands.OSCommand,
	gitConfig git_config.IGitConfig,
	diffRendererConfigManager *config.DiffRendererConfigManager,
) (*GitCommand, error) {
	repoPaths, err := git_commands.GetRepoPaths(osCommand.Cmd, version)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, errors.Errorf("Error getting repo paths: %v", err)
	}

	// A bare repo has no worktree for us to work in. Callers that can offer the
	// user something better (app.setupRepo) check for this first; getting here
	// means nobody could, e.g. because --git-dir was pointed at a bare repo.
	if repoPaths.IsBareRepo() {
		return nil, errors.New(cmn.Tr.BareRepoNotSupported)
	}

	err = os.Chdir(repoPaths.WorktreePath())
	if err != nil {
		return nil, utils.WrapError(err)
	}

	// Everything we run through the command builder gets told where the repo is
	// by the builder itself, but subprocesses don't go through it: user-defined
	// custom commands, an editor, and the lazygit we re-enter as git's sequence
	// editor during a rebase. Put it in the process env for those.
	env.SetGitLocationEnvVars(repoPaths.GitLocationEnvVars())

	// Pin the config reads to the repo directory like all other git commands
	// (see NewGitCmdObjBuilder); the config commands run outside that builder.
	gitConfig.SetDir(repoPaths.WorktreePath())

	return NewGitCommandAux(

View on GitHub (pinned to c477a2959b)

Solutions

Open a normal (non-bare) clone or attach a worktree to the bare repo and open lazygit there
If you only meant to browse, clone the repo: `git clone /repo.git` and run lazygit in the clone
If the repo was accidentally initialized bare, recreate it non-bare or unset core.bare with a worktree configured

Example fix

# before
lazygit --path=/srv/git/project.git   # bare repo -> error

# after
git clone /srv/git/project.git ~/src/project
lazygit --path ~/src/project

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

// before building commands for a repo path:
out, _ := exec.Command("git", "-C", path, "rev-parse", "--is-bare-repository").Output()
if strings.TrimSpace(string(out)) == "true" {
    // offer clone/worktree instead of proceeding
}

Try / catch

If NewGitCommand returns BareRepoNotSupported, do not retry on the same path — either redirect the user to a worktree/clone or exit. There is no in-place workaround inside a bare repo.

Prevention

Check `git rev-parse --is-bare-repository` in launcher scripts before opening lazygit
Never point --git-dir or --path at *.git directories used as remotes
Serve bare repos; work in clones or linked worktrees

When it happens

Trigger: Running `lazygit --path=/repo.git --use-config-file` where the path is bare; opening a *.git directory directly; scripts invoking lazygit programmatically inside a bare repo used as a remote.

Common situations: Servers holding central bare repos; users mistaking a bare repo for a normal clone; automations that reuse remote-storage repos.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of jesseduffield/lazygit@c477a2959b (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7395a9b1e4ff2237. Report an issue: GitHub.