Can JJ.exe be used as a portable application?

[Gavin-Holt]

Hi,

My life is on a USB stick and I don't have admin rights at work (UK Hospital - Windows 10).

As a hobby programmer I do not want to install git and fight with paths/drive letters or give it 47MB.

JJ as a single file application is very attractive. Many thanks for supplying binaries and please keep the native backend.

I worked through the Tutorial:

1. Without any installation I have used jj git clone to create a local copy of my work stored in GitHub.

2. After editing a few files I can run jj st which reports the activity and jj diff to see the alterations.

3. Closing the commit with jj close reports a new working copy in green - not blue.

4. Then jj st closes the parent (in blue) and reports a new clean working copy (in green).

How do I push my changes back to GitHub?

• I must admit I have not invested in learning git so I may be missing a step.

• I have tried to run jj git push but this reports Nothing changed.

• Making a ~\AppData\Roaming\jj\config.toml file with user name and email did not help.

I am hoping for a really simple clone/pull/push workflow to get me started with GitHub.

Sorry if this is a trivial noob question.

Kind Regards Gavin Holt

[martinvonz]

please keep the native backend.

Yes, that's not going away. I really don't recommend it for anything other than experiments at this point, though. It should work fine for small projects, but if you want a format that's going to be unchanged next year, you should use the git backend.

How do I push my changes back to GitHub?

Git requires a branch, and the jj git push command doesn't currently have a way of creating that branch on the fly. Instead, you'll have to do jj branch <branch name> -r <commit where it should go, typically "@-" for the parent commit>. It's possible that <branch name> is main or master in your case, if this is your own repo with a single branch

I must admit I have not invested in learning git so I may be missing a step.

Interesting. What source control system have you used so far? I thought everyone used Git these days.

[martinvonz]

Oh, and to answer the question in the title: Yes, jj.exe can be used as a portable application. I don't have access to a Windows machine myself, but it should work (i.e. feel free to file bug reports if it doesn't)

[Gavin-Holt]

Hi

Many thanks for your help.

I am not a software professional but know enough to feel guilty not using some form of VCS for my projects.

My repo is only a main branch - made using drag and drop! https://github.com/Gavin-Holt/SciTEwithStrips

I used the jj branch main command and then jj git push on a closed commit which returned:

Error: Unexpected git error when pushing: request failed with status code: 401;

This may be due to restrictions at work - I will try once I get home tonight.

Just thinking through logically - how does JJ transmit my credentials to GitHub to allow commits?

Kind Regards Gavin Holt

[martinvonz]

I am not a software professional

Ah, now it makes sense that you have not used Git.

Error: Unexpected git error when pushing: request failed with status code: 401;

That indicates a problem with authentication, as you seem to have guessed. jj currently only supports password-less SSH keys and ssh-agent (specifically in ~/.ssh/id_rsa).

[Gavin-Holt]

Hi

Thanks for the clarification.

I have spent some time learning about OpenSSH:

• I have a key pair in %USERPROFILE%.ssh\id_rsa and %USERPROFILE%.ssh\id_rsa.pub.
• I have uploaded the public key to my GitHub account.

Am I right that the ssh-agent service must be running for jj to access these files?

• Unfortunately this will stop "portable" use for non-admin Windows users
• You need admin rights to launch ssh-agent.exe
• Every updates reset the service to disabled - don't you just love Windows!!
• Stackoverflow advice

At home with ssh-agent running the jj.exe git push still fails with:

Working copy now at: 479bea7726f4 (in green)                                           
Press any key to continue . . .
Error: Unexpected git error when pushing: request failed with status code: 401; class=Http (34)

Not quite sure what I am doing wrong.

I am very grateful for your help and most of the above is information for others who may be hoping for a "portable" git client.

I don't expect any changes your secure workflow to address these problems.

Kind Regards Gavin Holt

[martinvonz]

Am I right that the ssh-agent service must be running for jj to access these files?

Yes, if the key is password-protected, you need to run ssh-agent. Password-less key files don't need ssh-agent.

Error: Unexpected git error when pushing: request failed with status code: 401; class=Http (34)

Just a guess, but maybe that's libgit2/libgit2#4958. Sorry :(

I don't expect any changes your secure workflow to address these problems.

We need to improve the authentication in general (there's #63 for one aspect of it).