Git: Output the top-level directory of the current repository
To output the root directory of the current repository, use:
$ git rev-parse --show-toplevel
/Users/hacker/Projects/smurfables
This option outputs the absolute path regardless of where you are within the current repository.
To output it as a relative path from the current directory, add --path-format=relative:
$ git rev-parse --path-format=relative --show-toplevel
../../
The --show-toplevel option was added in Git 1.7.0 (2010-02-12), thanks to Steven Drake in commit 7cceca5cccd.
Within alternative working trees
It’s possible for a repository to have multiple working trees, created with the git worktree command:
$ git worktree add ../smurfables-testing
Preparing worktree (new branch 'smurfables-testing')
HEAD is now at 60786a5 Smurfish smurfalator
git rev-parse --show-toplevel outputs the top-level of the current working tree:
$ cd ../smurfables-testing
$ git rev-parse --show-toplevel
/Users/hacker/Projects/smurfables-testing
To get the top-level directories of all working trees, use git worktree list with its --porcelain option and -z for null-byte-delimited strings (in case any directory name contains a newline). You’ll need to then parse the output to split by the null byte and select from each line starting with “worktree“. Here’s what the command output looks like, excluding -z because that doesn’t display correctly on the terminal:
$ git worktree list --porcelain
worktree /Users/hacker/Projects/smurfables
HEAD 60786a509fbb23dfca8808bf659304d349989b9d
branch refs/heads/main
worktree /Users/hacker/Projects/smurfables-testing
HEAD 60786a509fbb23dfca8808bf659304d349989b9d
branch refs/heads/smurfables-testing
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