sparse.adoc

sparse.expectFilesOutsideOfPatterns

Typically with sparse checkouts, files not matching any sparsity patterns are marked with a SKIP_WORKTREE bit in the index and are missing from the working tree. Accordingly, Git will ordinarily check whether files with the SKIP_WORKTREE bit are in fact present in the working tree contrary to expectations. If Git finds any, it marks those paths as present by clearing the relevant SKIP_WORKTREE bits. This option can be used to tell Git that such present-despite-skipped files are expected and to stop checking for them.

The default is false, which allows Git to automatically recover from the list of files in the index and working tree falling out of sync.

Set this to true if you are in a setup where some external factor relieves Git of the responsibility for maintaining the consistency between the presence of working tree files and sparsity patterns. For example, if you have a Git-aware virtual file system that has a robust mechanism for keeping the working tree and the sparsity patterns up to date based on access patterns.

Regardless of this setting, Git does not check for present-despite-skipped files unless sparse checkout is enabled, so this config option has no effect unless core.sparseCheckout is true.