How Microsoft scales Git for massive monorepos

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2024-04-18 21:30:04

By Simon Bisson , Contributor, InfoWorld |

Building applications at scale is nothing compared to building an operating system like Windows, especially when it comes to source code control. How do you manage the repository (or repositories) for such a software behemoth, with thousands of developers and testers, and with a complex build pipeline that’s continuously delivering fresh code?

Microsoft’s history with internal source control systems is convoluted. You might think it used the now discontinued Visual SourceSafe, but that was most appropriate for local file systems and smaller projects. Instead, Microsoft used many different tools over the years, initially an internal fork of the familiar Unix Revision Control System, before standardizing on Perforce Source Depot.

Meanwhile some parts of the business used Visual Studio’s Team Foundation Server, before switching to using Git as the foundation of a common engineering platform for the entire company. Team Foundation Server supported Git, and the mix of a visual tool and the command line supported lots of different use cases across Microsoft.