SZEDER Gábor [off-list ref] writes:
quoted
+To start, we use a new repository extension, `extensions.sparseIndex`, to
+allow inserting sparse-directory entries into indexes with file format
+versions 2, 3, and 4. This prevents Git versions that do not understand
+the sparse-index from operating on one, but it also prevents other
+operations that do not use the index at all.
Why is this not a non-optional index extension? ...
This really should be a non-optional index extension.
Yeah, the index extension mechanism was designed with optional and
required kinds because we wanted to support exactly a use case like
this one.
Thanks for pointing it out.