Subject: [GSoC 2026 Inquiry] Refactoring global state

From: Tian Yuchen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2026 15:57:31 +0800

Hi Christian, Karthik, Justin.. and Git community,

My name is Tian Yuchen. I am an undergraduate year 1 student who's new 
to the Git community. I've been hanging around the community for over a 
month now, contributing almost every day. I really love the vibe here!

I'm quite interested in applying for the GSoC project "Refactoring in 
order to reduce Git's global state":

Coincidentally, just as the new idea list for this year was released 
these past few days, I've been working on a patch that has some 
connections to this project. (setup.c: handling named pipes/FIFOs during 
git directory discovery, currently in v4). Indeed, based on my 
experience, this requires tremendous patience, but I'm more than willing 
to give it a try.

I understand that removing global state is a massive, multi-year effort. 
I assume the goal of the GSoC project is not to finish everything, but 
to pick a specific area or a set of related modules and migrate them to 
use 'struct repository' explicitly.

My Question:

Do you have a specific module or subsystem in mind that you would like 
to prioritize for this summer?

For example, would focusing on 'environment.c' (as mentioned in the idea 
list) be the primary target, or are there other areas (like 'config.c' 
or 'setup.c') that are currently blocking other major features?

I would love to align my proposal with the community's current 
priorities. Thanks for your time!

Regards,

Yuchen