Check if Git Repository is Bare

A bare Git repository is a repository that contains Git version-control data but does not have a working tree with checked-out files. Bare repositories are commonly used as central repositories for sharing and receiving changes. When working with Git from the command line, it can be useful to determine whether a repository is bare before running commands that require a working tree. This can be especially helpful in shell scripts, deployment workflows, and repository management tasks where the repository type needs to be detected automatically. This tutorial explains how to check if Git repository is bare.

The git rev-parse command with the --is-bare-repository option reports whether the current Git repository is bare. The command returns true for a bare repository and false for a repository with a working tree.

git rev-parse --is-bare-repository