@git-stunts/git-cas

JESSIE, STOP—

Hold on. He’s turning Git into a blob store. Let him cook.

Most potent clone available on GitHub (legally).

Git, freebased: pure CAS that’ll knock your SHAs off. LFS hates this repo.

Git isn’t source control. Git is a content-addressed object database.
We use the object database.

git-cas chunks files into Git blobs (dedupe for free), optionally encrypts them, and emits a manifest + a real Git tree so you can commit/tag/ref it like any other artifact.

What you get

• Dedupe for free Git already hashes objects. We just lean into it.
• Chunked storage big files become stable, reusable blobs.
• Optional AES-256-GCM encryption store secrets without leaking plaintext into the ODB.
• Compression gzip before encryption — smaller blobs, same round-trip.
• Passphrase encryption derive keys from passphrases via PBKDF2 or scrypt — no raw key management.
• Merkle manifests large files auto-split into sub-manifests for scalability.
• Manifests a tiny explicit index of chunks + metadata (JSON/CBOR).
• Tree output generates standard Git trees so assets snap into commits cleanly.
• Full round-trip store, tree, and restore — get your bytes back, verified.
• Lifecycle management readManifest, deleteAsset, findOrphanedChunks — inspect trees, plan deletions, audit storage.
• Vault GC-safe ref-based storage. One ref (refs/cas/vault) indexes all assets by slug. No more silent data loss from git gc.

Use it for: binary assets, build artifacts, model weights, data packs, secret bundles, weird experiments, etc.

What's new in v2.0.0

Compression — compression: { algorithm: 'gzip' } on store(). Compression runs before encryption. Decompression on restore() is automatic.

Passphrase-based encryption — Pass passphrase instead of encryptionKey. Keys are derived via PBKDF2 (default) or scrypt. KDF parameters are stored in the manifest for deterministic re-derivation. Use deriveKey() directly for manual control.

Merkle tree manifests — When chunk count exceeds merkleThreshold (default: 1000), manifests are automatically split into sub-manifests stored as separate blobs. readManifest() transparently reconstitutes them. Full backward compatibility with v1 manifests.

See CHANGELOG.md for the full list of changes.

What's new in v3.1.0

Interactive vault dashboard — git cas vault dashboard launches a full TUI with split-pane layout, manifest detail view, keyboard navigation, and real-time filtering. Browse entries, inspect chunks, and view encryption status without memorizing CLI flags.

Progress bars — store and restore now show animated progress with throughput reporting. Suppress with --quiet.

Pretty history — git cas vault history --pretty renders a color-coded, paginated timeline of vault commits.

Inspect command — git cas inspect <tree-oid> renders manifest details with chunk table, encryption info, and compression badges.

See CHANGELOG.md for the full list of changes.

Install

npm install @git-stunts/git-cas

npx jsr add @git-stunts/git-cas

Usage (Node API)

import GitPlumbing from '@git-stunts/plumbing';
import ContentAddressableStore from '@git-stunts/cas';

const git = new GitPlumbing({ cwd: './assets-repo' });
const cas = new ContentAddressableStore({ plumbing: git });

// Store a file -> returns a manifest (chunk list + metadata)
const manifest = await cas.storeFile({
  filePath: './image.png',
  slug: 'my-image',
  encryptionKey: myKeyBuffer, // optional (32 bytes)
});

// Turn the manifest into a Git tree OID
const treeOid = await cas.createTree({ manifest });

// Restore later — get your bytes back, integrity-verified
await cas.restoreFile({ manifest, outputPath: './restored.png' });

// Read the manifest back from a tree OID
const m = await cas.readManifest({ treeOid });

// Lifecycle: inspect deletion impact, find orphaned chunks
const { slug, chunksOrphaned } = await cas.deleteAsset({ treeOid });
const { referenced, total } = await cas.findOrphanedChunks({ treeOids: [treeOid] });

// v2.0.0: Compressed + passphrase-encrypted store
const manifest2 = await cas.storeFile({
  filePath: './image.png',
  slug: 'my-image',
  passphrase: 'my secret passphrase',
  compression: { algorithm: 'gzip' },
});

CLI (git plugin)

git-cas installs as a Git subcommand:

# Store a file — prints manifest JSON
git cas store ./image.png --slug my-image

# Store and vault the tree OID (GC-safe)
git cas store ./image.png --slug my-image --tree

# Restore from a vault slug
git cas restore --slug my-image --out ./restored.png

# Restore from a direct tree OID
git cas restore --oid <tree-oid> --out ./restored.png

# Vault management
git cas vault init
git cas vault list
git cas vault info my-image
git cas vault remove my-image
git cas vault history

# Encrypted vault round-trip (passphrase via env var or --vault-passphrase flag)
export GIT_CAS_PASSPHRASE="secret"
git cas vault init
git cas store ./secret.bin --slug vault-entry --tree
git cas restore --slug vault-entry --out ./decrypted.bin

When to use git-cas (and when not to)

"I just want screenshots in my README"

Use an orphan branch. Seriously. It's 5 git commands, zero dependencies, and GitHub renders the images inline. Google "git orphan branch assets" — that's all you need. git-cas is overkill for public images and demo GIFs.

"I need encrypted secrets / large binaries / deduplicated assets in a Git repo"

That's git-cas. The orphan branch gives you none of:

"Why not Git LFS?"

Because sometimes you want the Git object database to be the store — deterministic, content-addressed, locally replicable, commit-addressable — with no external server, no LFS endpoint, and no second system to manage.

If your team uses GitHub and needs file locking + web UI previews, use LFS. If you want encrypted, self-contained, server-free binary storage that travels with git clone, use git-cas.

THIS HASH’LL KNOCK YOUR SHAs OFF! FIRST COMMIT’S FREE, MAN.

License

Apache-2.0 Copyright © 2026 James Ross

_{Built by FLYING ROBOTS}