[brynne8]

What it does

A project reached through a symlink had an empty changed-file list: no changed badge, no line counts, no entries at all.

• resolveExistingPath() (lib/paths.ts): resolves the nearest existing ancestor and keeps the remainder as written, so a deleted file still works. samePath() stays lexical and says so; this is the resolving half.
• getGitStatus() (lib/git-changes.ts): rebases every path git reports onto the cwd the caller asked about, and takes the line-stat pathspec from the resolved cwd.
• getGitFileDiff() (lib/git-changes.ts): compares and derives its pathspec from the resolved pair, so a path named through a link still resolves to the file git means — and a path that resolves outside the repository stays refused.

A folder that is not in a repository keeps answering isGitRepository: false with nothing listed, and that is now pinned by a test.

Why it matters (the broken behaviour)

On the base commit, lib/git-changes.ts:

• getGitStatus(cwd) asks git for the repository root with git rev-parse --show-toplevel (findRepositoryRoot, lib/git-changes.ts:30-32). That answer is the repository's real path.
• It computes each file's path as path.resolve(repositoryRoot, entry.path) and keeps it only if isWithinPath(cwd, filePath) — a string comparison against the cwd the caller passed (lib/git-changes.ts:123-124).
• The line-stat pathspec is derived the same way (readTrackedLineStats, lib/git-changes.ts:61-66, called with the caller's cwd at lib/git-changes.ts:120).
• The diff lookup repeats the shape: getGitFileDiff() compares the file against the repository root as strings (lib/git-changes.ts:207-209).

On macOS those two never match when the project is behind a link: git says /private/var/folders/…/project (the real path), the caller says /var/folders/…/project. path.resolve does not resolve symlinks, so every file is filtered out and files comes back empty — and the diff lookup answers supported: false. The same is true for /tmp (a link to /private/tmp) and for any project the operator opened through a link of their own.

How to reproduce (on main, before the fix)

1. Make a repository and modify a tracked file in it:

   mkdir -p /tmp/pi-web-repro/repo && cd /tmp/pi-web-repro/repo
   git init -q && echo one > a.txt && git add a.txt && git commit -qm seed
   echo two > a.txt
   

2. Link to it and open Pi Web on the link:

   ln -s /tmp/pi-web-repro/repo /tmp/pi-web-repro/link
   

3. Open /tmp/pi-web-repro/link in Pi Web.

Before the fix the Git panel is empty — no changed badge on a.txt, no line counts, no entries — although the file is modified. The same happens for any project reached through /tmp or ~/Library/Caches, which are links on macOS. After the fix the file is listed as M with its line counts.

Testing

Node 26.7.0 (source ~/.nvm/nvm.sh && nvm use 26.7.0), in the worktree.

• npm test — pass: tests 2874 / suites 16 / pass 2873 / fail 0 / skipped 1 (the one skip is the pre-existing Windows-only junction test in app/api/git/diff/route.test.mjs).
• node_modules/.bin/tsc --noEmit — clean, no output.
• npm run lint — clean, no output.

The new test fails on the untouched base commit and passes with the fix. On the base commit (git checkout origin/main -- lib/git-changes.ts lib/paths.ts, tests kept):

$ node --experimental-strip-types --test lib/git-changes.test.mjs
ℹ tests 5
ℹ pass 3
ℹ fail 2

✖ a repository reached through a link reports files under the folder it was given (173.405166ms)
  AssertionError [ERR_ASSERTION]: a row's path carries its change; listed []
      at TestContext.<anonymous> (file:///…/lib/git-changes.test.mjs:99:12)

✖ a repository above the folder asked about contributes no rows (123.972458ms)
  AssertionError [ERR_ASSERTION]: Expected values to be strictly deep-equal:
  + actual - expected

  + []
  - [
  -   '/var/folders/…/pi-web-git-linked-kF6oU4/link-repo/sub/b.txt'
  - ]

With the fix:

$ node --experimental-strip-types --test lib/git-changes.test.mjs lib/paths.test.mjs app/api/git/diff/route.test.mjs
ℹ tests 20
ℹ pass 19
ℹ fail 0
ℹ skipped 1

The test builds a repository in a temporary folder, makes a symlink of its own to it (so it works on any POSIX system, without relying on /tmp being a link) and is skipped on Windows.

Provenance

Ported by hand from the Bun-running fork https://github.com/brynne8/pi-web-bun, commit 478d5178 ("fix(files): name a changed file by the path the tree was given"). The fork's commit also touched lib/git-revert.ts — a write path — which has the same cause (it derives the checkout's path from the unresolved pair). That part is deliberately not part of this PR and should be done separately.

Notes

• Read path only: the status listing and the diff lookup. No new setting, no new dependency, no user-facing string, no change to pi or to what pi writes to session files.
• Access is not widened: a file that resolves outside the repository the caller asked about is still refused (getGitFileDiff drops any candidate path that leaves the repository, and the routes' allowed-root rules are unchanged).

[brynne8]

The first run's e2e job was red on an unrelated flake — e2e/session-navigation.mjs timed out waiting for a browser page event (Timeout 30000ms exceeded while waiting for event "page"), with no Git or file access involved:

✖ two tabs keep their own sessions through reloads; tab memory and ?session= are not crossed
  browserContext.waitForEvent: Timeout 30000ms exceeded while waiting for event "page"
      at newTab (/home/runner/work/pi-web/pi-web/e2e/session-navigation.mjs:61:28)

The checks job (lint, tsc --noEmit, npm test) was green in that run. I cannot re-run the upstream workflow from a fork (it needs admin rights), so I pushed an empty commit to re-trigger it; the second run is green in both jobs (checks pass, e2e pass). The empty commit changes no file — the diff is the one commit above.