On Fri, 05 Dec 2025, Patrick Steinhardt [off-list ref] wrote:

On Wed, Nov 19, 2025 at 11:10:30PM +0200, Adrian Ratiu wrote:

quoted

Some users find it difficult to distribute repo config changes for
enabling extensions.submoduleEncoding, or to enable it by passing
the config via cmdline, so we add a build-time option which can
enable the extension for convenience.

Wouldn't it be more sensible to make this a runtime configuration key
that users can configure in their gitconfig?

The request I got from a combination of feedback from Junio, Aaron and
Josh is to avoid any kind of required user intervention or manual
migration, to find ways to automate the transition as much as possible.

If possible without even having to change or distribute configs or set
cmdline parameters to enable the new extension (that is why I added this
off-by-default build option in v5).

We could add a runtime gitconfig key in addition to the build and repo
config options, I see no issue with that.

I have no horse in this race btw, just trying to make everyone happy. :)