Git Annex
Git Annex is a distributed file synchronization and version control system built on top of Git, designed to manage large files that are impractical to store directly in a Git repository. It allows users to track files without storing their content in Git, instead using symbolic links and metadata to manage file locations across multiple storage backends (e.g., local drives, cloud services, or remote servers). This enables efficient handling of large datasets, media files, or backups while leveraging Git's versioning capabilities for metadata.
Developers should learn Git Annex when working with projects involving large files (e.g., datasets over 100MB, video/audio files, disk images) that would bloat a standard Git repository, as it avoids performance issues and storage limits. It is particularly useful in data science, research, media production, or backup scenarios where version control of file metadata and distributed storage across multiple locations is needed. For example, it allows teams to share and sync large files without requiring everyone to download the entire dataset, saving bandwidth and storage space.