GitHub - prashantsengar/GitEcho: The invisible, decentralized git mirror.

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The invisible, decentralized git mirror.

gitecho (alias ge) is a "set-and-forget" utility that automatically mirrors your git pushes to other providers (GitLab, Bitbucket, Gitea, or custom servers) in the background.

Mirrored at: https://gitlab.com/prashantsengar/gitecho

Motivation

We rely too heavily on GitHub. When it goes down, half the world's open-source development stops.

I built gitecho because existing mirroring tools are flawed:

  • CI/CD Pipelines: Too complex. Requires managing secrets and YAML for every single project.
  • Cron Jobs: Too slow. Code is mirrored minutes or hours later.
  • Manual Scripts: Too tedious. You forget to run them.

My goal was an Invisible Utility: something you configure once per project and then never think about again. You push to origin as usual, and gitecho handles the redundancy instantly.

Installation

Recommended (uv)

Install uv first: https://docs.astral.sh/uv/getting-started/installation/

Then install gitecho in an isolated tool environment:

For local development from this repository, prefer editable install so code changes are picked up immediately:

uv tool install --force --editable .

If you already installed from --from . and need a hard refresh:

uv tool install --force --reinstall --refresh --from . gitecho

If ge is not found after install, add ~/.local/bin to your shell PATH:

source "$HOME/.local/bin/env"

To make this permanent on zsh:

echo 'source "$HOME/.local/bin/env"' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc

Standard (pip)

Enable Autocomplete

Get tab completion for commands like sync or logs.

Authentication (Important)

Since gitecho runs in the background, it cannot ask you for a password. It must be able to push silently.

In background mode, gitecho disables interactive git prompts (GIT_TERMINAL_PROMPT=0, SSH batch mode). If auth is missing, it fails fast and writes the reason to ge logs.

1. SSH (Best) If you use SSH URLs (e.g., git@gitlab.com:user/repo.git) and your key is loaded, it works out of the box.

2. HTTPS (Requires Credential Helper) If you use HTTPS URLs (e.g., https://gitlab.com/user/repo.git), you must enable the Git Credential Helper so gitecho can read your saved token.

  • Mac: git config --global credential.helper osxkeychain
  • Windows: git config --global credential.helper manager
  • Linux: git config --global credential.helper store (or libsecret)

Test it: If git push echo-gitlab-com works in your terminal without typing a password, gitecho will work.

Usage

1. Setup a Mirror

Go to your project and link a backup repository.

cd ~/my-project
ge add git@gitlab.com:username/my-project.git

Output: ✔ Linked echo-gitlab-com

If you upgraded gitecho and want to refresh the hook, run ge add again with the same URL.

Expected output (already linked case): Mirror already linked as <remote-name>. Example: Mirror already linked as echo-remote.

2. The Workflow

Just use git.

That's it. Your code goes to GitHub immediately. gitecho silently triggers a background process to push to echo-gitlab-com. By default, it captures the exact refs from pre-push, waits for the origin refs to appear, then mirrors those same refs.

3. Check Status (Optional)

If you want to verify the mirror is active:

Power User Features

Shell Integration (Starship / Zsh)

Want to see if your repo is mirrored right in your prompt? Use the --short flag. It returns ✔ if active, x if error, or nothing.

Example (.zshrc, basic prompt):

setopt PROMPT_SUBST
PROMPT+=' $(command -v ge >/dev/null 2>&1 && ge status --short 2>/dev/null)'

If you use Powerlevel10k, add a custom gitecho segment in ~/.p10k.zsh instead of editing PROMPT directly.

Logs

Since the tool is invisible, failures (like a down server) are silent to avoid interrupting your flow. Check what happened in the background:

Show more lines:

Origin Rejection Policy

Default behavior is safety-first: if origin does not reflect the pushed refs within the timeout window, gitecho skips mirror push and logs a warning.

If you want best-effort mirroring even when origin might have rejected the push, set:

export GITECHO_CONTINUE_ON_ORIGIN_REJECT=1

Or for a single push:

GITECHO_CONTINUE_ON_ORIGIN_REJECT=1 git push origin main

Sync All

By default, the hook mirrors the exact refs from your push. To force a full sync of all branches and tags:

Uninstalling

I believe tools should leave no trace. If you want to remove gitecho from a project:

This removes the pre-push hook and deletes all echo-* remotes from the local configuration.

Future Plans

  • Global Watch: Automatically mirror every repo in a specific directory (e.g., ~/dev).
  • Auto-Creation: Detect if the remote repo doesn't exist and create it via API automatically (skipping the "Create Project" step in the browser).