Added: v0.6
The Batch API is used to request the ability to transfer LFS objects with the
LFS server. The Batch URL is built by adding /objects/batch
to the LFS server
URL.
Git remote: https://git-server.com/foo/bar
LFS server: https://git-server.com/foo/bar.git/info/lfs
Batch API: https://git-server.com/foo/bar.git/info/lfs/objects/batch
See the Server Discovery doc for more info on how LFS builds the LFS server URL.
All Batch API requests use the POST verb, and require the following HTTP headers. The request and response bodies are JSON.
Accept: application/vnd.git-lfs+json
Content-Type: application/vnd.git-lfs+json
The client may also include a charset=utf-8
parameter in the
Content-Type
header, which servers should be prepared to accept.
See the Authentication doc for more info on how LFS gets authorizes Batch API requests.
The client sends the following information to the Batch endpoint to transfer some objects:
operation
- Should bedownload
orupload
.transfers
- An optional Array of String identifiers for transfer adapters that the client has configured. If omitted, thebasic
transfer adapter MUST be assumed by the server.ref
- Optional object describing the server ref that the objects belong to. Note: Added in v2.4.name
- Fully-qualified server refspec.
objects
- An Array of objects to download.oid
- String OID of the LFS object.size
- Integer byte size of the LFS object. Must be at least zero.
hash_algo
- The hash algorithm used to name Git LFS objects. Optional; defaults tosha256
if not specified.
Note: Git LFS currently only supports the basic
transfer adapter. This
property was added for future compatibility with some experimental transfer
adapters. See the API README for a list of the documented
transfer adapters.
// POST https://lfs-server.com/objects/batch
// Accept: application/vnd.git-lfs+json
// Content-Type: application/vnd.git-lfs+json
// Authorization: Basic ... (if needed)
{
"operation": "download",
"transfers": [ "basic" ],
"ref": { "name": "refs/heads/main" },
"objects": [
{
"oid": "12345678",
"size": 123
}
],
"hash_algo": "sha256"
}
The Batch API added the ref
property in LFS v2.4 to support Git server authentication schemes that take the refspec into account. Since this is
a new addition to the API, servers should be able to operate with a missing or null ref
property.
Some examples will illustrate how the ref
property can be used.
- User
owner
has full access to the repository. - User
contrib
has readonly access to the repository, and write access torefs/heads/contrib
.
{
"operation": "download",
"transfers": [ "basic" ],
"objects": [
{
"oid": "12345678",
"size": 123
}
]
}
With this payload, both owner
and contrib
can download the requested object, since they both have read access.
{
"operation": "upload",
"transfers": [ "basic" ],
"objects": [
{
"oid": "12345678",
"size": 123
}
]
}
With this payload, only owner
can upload the requested object.
{
"operation": "upload",
"transfers": [ "basic" ],
"ref": { "name": "refs/heads/contrib" },
"objects": [
{
"oid": "12345678",
"size": 123
}
]
}
Both owner
and contrib
can upload the request object.
The Batch API should always return with a 200 status, unless there are some issues with the request (bad authorization, bad json, etc). See below for examples of response errors. Check out the documented transfer adapters in the API README to see how Git LFS handles successful Batch responses.
Successful responses include the following properties:
transfer
- String identifier of the transfer adapter that the server prefers. This MUST be one of the giventransfer
identifiers from the request. Servers can assume thebasic
transfer adapter if none were given. The Git LFS client will use thebasic
transfer adapter if thetransfer
property is omitted.objects
- An Array of objects to download.oid
- String OID of the LFS object.size
- Integer byte size of the LFS object. Must be at least zero.authenticated
- Optional boolean specifying whether the request for this specific object is authenticated. If omitted or false, Git LFS will attempt to find credentials for this URL.actions
- Object containing the next actions for this object. Applicable actions depend on whichoperation
is specified in the request. How these properties are interpreted depends on which transfer adapter the client will be using.href
- String URL to download the object.header
- Optional hash of String HTTP header key/value pairs to apply to the request.expires_in
- Whole number of seconds after local client time when transfer will expire. Preferred overexpires_at
if both are provided. Maximum of 2147483647, minimum of -2147483647.expires_at
- String uppercase RFC 3339-formatted timestamp with second precision for when the given action expires (usually due to a temporary token).
hash_algo
- The hash algorithm used to name Git LFS objects for this repository. Optional; defaults tosha256
if not specified.
Download operations MUST specify a download
action, or an object error if the
object cannot be downloaded for some reason. See "Response Errors" below.
Upload operations can specify an upload
and a verify
action. The upload
action describes how to upload the object. If the object has a verify
action,
the LFS client will hit this URL after a successful upload. Servers can use this
for extra verification, if needed. If a client requests to upload an object that
the server already has, the server should omit the actions
property
completely. The client will then assume the server already has it.
// HTTP/1.1 200 Ok
// Content-Type: application/vnd.git-lfs+json
{
"transfer": "basic",
"objects": [
{
"oid": "1111111",
"size": 123,
"authenticated": true,
"actions": {
"download": {
"href": "https://some-download.com",
"header": {
"Key": "value"
},
"expires_at": "2016-11-10T15:29:07Z"
}
}
}
],
"hash_algo": "sha256"
}
If there are problems accessing individual objects, servers should continue to return a 200 status code, and provide per-object errors. Here is an example:
// HTTP/1.1 200 Ok
// Content-Type: application/vnd.git-lfs+json
{
"transfer": "basic",
"objects": [
{
"oid": "1111111",
"size": 123,
"error": {
"code": 404,
"message": "Object does not exist"
}
}
],
"hash_algo": "sha256"
}
LFS object error codes should match HTTP status codes where possible:
- 404 - The object does not exist on the server.
- 409 - The specified hash algorithm disagrees with the server's acceptable options.
- 410 - The object was removed by the owner.
- 422 - Validation error.
LFS servers can respond with these other HTTP status codes:
- 401 - The authentication credentials are needed, but were not sent. Git LFS will attempt to get the authentication for the request and retry immediately.
- 403 - The user has read, but not write access. Only applicable when
the
operation
in the request is "upload." - 404 - The Repository does not exist for the user.
- 422 - Validation error with one or more of the objects in the request. This means that none of the requested objects to upload are valid.
Error responses will not have an objects
property. They will only have:
message
- String error message.request_id
- Optional String unique identifier for the request. Useful for debugging.documentation_url
- Optional String to give the user a place to report errors.
// HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
// Content-Type: application/vnd.git-lfs+json
{
"message": "Not found",
"documentation_url": "https://lfs-server.com/docs/errors",
"request_id": "123"
}
HTTP 401 responses should include an LFS-Authenticate
header to tell the
client what form of authentication it requires. If omitted, Git LFS will assume
Basic Authentication. This mirrors the standard WWW-Authenticate
header with
a custom header key so it does not trigger password prompts in browsers.
// HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
// Content-Type: application/vnd.git-lfs+json
// LFS-Authenticate: Basic realm="Git LFS"
{
"message": "Credentials needed",
"documentation_url": "https://lfs-server.com/docs/errors",
"request_id": "123"
}
The following status codes can optionally be returned from the API, depending on the server implementation.
- 406 - The Accept header needs to be
application/vnd.git-lfs+json
. - 413 - The batch API request contained too many objects or the request was otherwise too large.
- 429 - The user has hit a rate limit with the server. Though the API does not specify any rate limits, implementors are encouraged to set some for availability reasons.
- 501 - The server has not implemented the current method. Reserved for future use.
- 507 - The server has insufficient storage capacity to complete the request.
- 509 - The bandwidth limit for the user or repository has been exceeded. The API does not specify any bandwidth limit, but implementors may track usage.
Some server errors may trigger the client to retry requests, such as 500, 502, 503, and 504.