`jj git clone` fails with `Error: Git remote named 'origin' already exists`

[christianscott]

Description

jj git clone is failing for me

# jj git clone https://github.com/octocat/Hello-World
Error: Git remote named 'origin' already exists

It also fails when I try to clone other repositories

# jj git clone https://github.com/christianscott/christianfscott.com.git
Error: Git remote named 'origin' already exists

I made sure to nuke all of my .gitconfig files & the environment and it still fails:

# git config list | wc -l
       0
# env -i (which jj) git clone https://github.com/octocat/Hello-World
Error: Git remote named 'origin' already exists

It succeeds if I specify a custom remote:

# jj git clone https://github.com/octocat/Hello-World --remote github
Fetching into new repo in "/Users/christian.s/Code/github.com/octocat/Hello-World"
remote: Enumerating objects: 13, done.
remote: Total 13 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 13 (from 1)
bookmark: master@github          [new] tracked
bookmark: octocat-patch-1@github [new] untracked
bookmark: test@github            [new] untracked
Setting the revset alias `trunk()` to `master@github`
Working copy  (@) now at: rxwxlwoy 3b7c6b23 (empty) (no description set)
Parent commit (@-)      : orrkosyo 7fd1a60b master | (empty) Merge pull request #6 from Spaceghost/patch-1
Added 1 files, modified 0 files, removed 0 files
Hint: Running `git clean -xdf` will remove `.jj/`!

However, jj git remote list fails:

# cd Hello-World/
# jj git remote list
github https://github.com/octocat/Hello-World
Error: Failed to load configured remote origin
Caused by: Neither 'url` nor 'pushUrl' fields were set in the remote's configuration.

There is no origin remote in .git/config:

# cat .git/config
[core]
        repositoryformatversion = 0
        filemode = true
        bare = false
        logallrefupdates = true
        symlinks = true
        ignorecase = false
        precomposeunicode = true
[remote "github"]
        url = https://github.com/octocat/Hello-World
        fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/github/*

Specifications

• Platform: macos 15.7.1
• Version: jj 0.34.0-3c0bd635d1bf217448af05d3720aa195cf9e6080

[christianscott]

Ah I missed /etc/gitconfig, found in this issue #6159 (created by my colleague lol). If I also remove /etc/gitconfig then the clone succeeds.

This file contains a [remote "origin"] block:

[remote "origin"]
        fetch = ^refs/heads/mergeQueue-*

If I remove it then the clone succeeds.

It looks like adding a remote fails if the config contains any settings related to the remote that's being added

jj/lib/src/git.rs

Lines 1918 to 1922 in 3c0bd63

	if git_repo.try_find_remote(remote_name.as_str()).is_some() {
	return Err(GitRemoteManagementError::RemoteAlreadyExists(
	remote_name.to_owned(),
	));
	}

I don't think I know enough about git to suggest what the behaviour would be better, but this seems overzealous. A couple of ideas:

1. add an option to "forcefully" update the remote, which could be used during a clone
2. only fail if the remote config exists in the local git config (.git/config)

[christianscott]

Note to future self: I could have used fs_usage to figure out which gitconfig files were being read

# sudo fs_usage -f pathname -w jj | rg gitconfig
11:42:31.271056  open              F=5        (R__________X__)  private/etc/gitconfig                                                                                                                                         0.000020   jj.31357618
11:42:31.271098  open              F=5        (R__________X__)  /Users/christian.s/.gitconfig                                                                                                                                 0.000009   jj.31357618
11:42:31.271136  stat64                                 /opt/homebrew/etc/gitconfig                                                                                                                                           0.000005   jj.31357618
11:42:31.271145  open              F=5        (R__________X__)  /opt/homebrew/etc/gitconfig                                                                                                                                   0.000009   jj.31357618