I wanted to create cloned repo, but with metaninfo separately from data. I cloned the repo ( git-clone ~/repo ~/x) , then I moved ~/x/.git to different place (mv ~/x/.git ~/git); then exported GIT_DIR=~/git; then cd ~/x; But now 'git status' says 'fatal: runstatus must be run in a work tree' . Why ? 'ls $GIT_DIR' shows FETCH_HEAD HEAD ORIG_HEAD branches config description hooks index info logs objects refs This is ok, no ? Thanks Yakov - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html