#1695: Clone settings to temporary directory, analyse, and then move by areinicke · Pull Request #1878 · devonfw/IDEasy

areinicke · 2026-04-30T06:40:04Z

This PR fixes #1695

Implemented changes:

When creating a new project, the settings or code repository is first cloned to a temporary location (at $IDE_ROOT/_ide/tmp/projects/<project name>) where it is analyzed for validity. We check whether an ide.properties file exist either at the top level or within a settings folder at the top level. Only if this passes, do we create a new project at $IDE_ROOT/<project name> and move the files from the temporary location to the final location. The temporary folder is fully deleted after this process.
Removed the --code option when creating a project. We now automatically determine if the repository is a code or settings repository and act accordingly.

Checklist for this PR

Make sure everything is checked before merging this PR. For further info please also see
our DoD.

When running mvn clean test locally all tests pass and build is successful
PR title is of the form #«issue-id»: «brief summary» (e.g. #921: fixed setup.bat). If no issue ID exists, title only.
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Issue is set to In Progress and assigned to you or there is no issue (might happen for very small PRs)
You followed all coding conventions
You have added the issue implemented by your PR in CHANGELOG.adoc unless issue is labeled
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Note: In some places, I used getFileAccess() to copy and subsequently delete files. I am aware that there is a move function. However, this was always failing for some reason

coveralls · 2026-04-30T08:43:56Z

Coverage Report for CI Build 25993814010

Coverage decreased (-0.2%) to 70.496%

Details

Coverage decreased (-0.2%) from the base build.
Patch coverage: No coverable lines changed in this PR.
51 coverage regressions across 5 files.

Uncovered Changes

No uncovered changes found.

Coverage Regressions

51 previously-covered lines in 5 files lost coverage.

File	Lines Losing Coverage	Coverage
com/devonfw/tools/ide/commandlet/AbstractUpdateCommandlet.java	35	77.17%
com/devonfw/tools/ide/context/IdeContext.java	7	70.63%
com/devonfw/tools/ide/git/GitUrl.java	6	69.49%
com/devonfw/tools/ide/version/VersionSegment.java	2	88.71%
com/devonfw/tools/ide/commandlet/CreateCommandlet.java	1	92.68%

Coverage Stats


Relevant Lines:	15482
Covered Lines:	11378
Line Coverage:	73.49%
Relevant Branches:	6918
Covered Branches:	4413
Branch Coverage:	63.79%
Branches in Coverage %:	Yes
Coverage Strength:	3.11 hits per line

💛 - Coveralls

…verification

…n' of https://github.com/areinicke/IDEasy into feature/1695-clone-settings-to-temp-dir-for-verification

Co-authored-by: Robin Wenzel <robin@die-wenzels.de>

areinicke · 2026-04-30T12:16:43Z

Thanks for the review. I have integrated the changes.

hohwille

@areinicke thanks for your PR. Great that you implemented a test for it and finally started improving GitContextMock what I suggested long time ago when GitContextMock was supposed to be implemented. 👍
This is not a very easy task. Seems in such cases it makes sense to start with a design session before doing the complete PR implementation in the future...
However, should still not be a big change since most of your PR is already perfectly correct.

hohwille · 2026-05-17T13:46:30Z


+  /**
+   * This method is invoked when a new porject is created. It analyzes the cloned repository to check if it is a valid IDEasy repository. The repository can either be a settings repository (with ide.properties or devon.properties on the top level)
+   * or a code repository (with a settings folder on the top level containing such a file). Otherwise, the project creatio fails and an error message is logged.


Suggested change

* or a code repository (with a settings folder on the top level containing such a file). Otherwise, the project creatio fails and an error message is logged.

* or a code repository (with a settings folder on the top level containing such a file). Otherwise, the project creation fails and an error message is logged.

hohwille · 2026-05-17T13:48:54Z

+  /**
+   * Moves files of a new projectfrom the temporary location to the final project location.
+   * @param oldPath - The path of the file or directory to be moved.
+   * @param newPath - The path of the destination.
+   */
+  private void moveProject(Path oldPath, Path newPath) {
+    FileAccess fileAccess = this.context.getFileAccess();
+    try {
+      fileAccess.copy(oldPath, newPath, FileCopyMode.COPY_TREE_OVERRIDE_FILES);
+      fileAccess.delete(oldPath);
+    } catch (Exception e) {
+      LOG.error("Failed to move project from {} to {}. Please move it manually.", oldPath, newPath, e);
+    }
+  }


I am not getting why we move by creating a copy and then deleting the original source when we could use an atomic move operation. A clone code-repo can potentially be very big - this seems wasteful.

hohwille · 2026-05-17T13:50:09Z

+   * @param repositoryPath - The path of the repository to be checked.
+   */
+  private boolean isCodeRepository(Path repositoryPath) {
+    return Files.exists(repositoryPath.resolve("settings").resolve(EnvironmentVariables.DEFAULT_PROPERTIES)) || Files.exists(repositoryPath.resolve("settings").resolve(EnvironmentVariables.LEGACY_PROPERTIES));


Reuse and avoid redundancies:

Suggested change

return Files.exists(repositoryPath.resolve("settings").resolve(EnvironmentVariables.DEFAULT_PROPERTIES)) || Files.exists(repositoryPath.resolve("settings").resolve(EnvironmentVariables.LEGACY_PROPERTIES));

return isSettingsRepository(repositoryPath.resolve(IdeContext.FOLDER_SETTINGS));

hohwille · 2026-05-17T14:06:19Z

+      // Check if instance of create commandlet. Only then will we analyze the project
+      if (this instanceof CreateCommandlet) {
+        analyzeProject();
+      }


This design can be improved.
Option 1: you assume that you only need to analyse this when a project is initially created but not when updated.

Then simply override updateSettings() in CreateCommandlet and call analyseProject() after super.updateSettings(). Then only CreateCommandlet knows of analyseProject() (SoC).

Option 2: you need to analyse whenever you need to clone the settings.

Then this code is wrong since you skip this in case of UpdateCommandlet.
In such case you would need to do this after the cloning of the settings.

IMHO the option to ask for the settings in case of ide update is a kind of auto-repair feature of IDEasy.
Therefore ide update should behave also in the same way that it detects if we cloned an regular settings repo or a code repo with settings included.
But to get all this clean, we might need to revisit the design how create and update try to reuse the existing code/methods from AbstractUpdateCommandlet.
IMHO it would be better to do this on create:

prepare a temp folder

trigger the reusable functionality that clones the settings into a given project folder where here we provide the temporary folder. If it detected a code repo, it can move the settings to main workspace and proper folder name from the GitUrl and create the symlink to preserve a proper settings folder in the projects root dir.

if that fails (neither regular settings repo nor code repo with settings found) we cleanup and abort.

if that succeeded we can move the temp folder to the real project folder and continue with the regular logic where we re-initialize the IdeContext on the real project and do the full create/update process.

In case of ide update we can keep everything as is and reuse the same functionality described above in the 2nd point.

hohwille · 2026-05-17T14:09:30Z

+    } else if (isCodeRepository(settingsPath)) {
+      LOG.info(EnvironmentVariables.DEFAULT_PROPERTIES + " or " + EnvironmentVariables.LEGACY_PROPERTIES + " found in settings subfolder. This indicates a code repository with a settings folder on the top level.");
+      // Move settings folder contents containing code into workspace/main/<project_name>
+      actualProjectPath = this.context.getIdeRoot().resolve(projectName).resolve("workspaces/main/").resolve(projectName);


The name should be derived from the git repo (see GitUrl)?
If I create ide create cool-project https://github.com/foo/awesome-project.git
I would expect $IDE_ROOT/cool-project/workspaces/main/awesome-project/settings and $IDE_ROOT/cool-project/settings being a symlink to it.

hohwille · 2026-05-17T14:16:06Z

+      // Delete empty settings folder in IDE_ROOT/<project_name> so we can create a symlink in the next step
+      fileAccess.delete(actualProjectPath.resolve(projectName).resolve("settings"));


move it, then you do not have to delete it.

Suggested change

// Delete empty settings folder in IDE_ROOT/<project_name> so we can create a symlink in the next step

fileAccess.delete(actualProjectPath.resolve(projectName).resolve("settings"));

hohwille · 2026-05-17T14:16:36Z

+      // Final cleanup in temp location
+      fileAccess.delete(this.context.getIdeHome());
+


IMHO again does not belong here due to SoC:

Suggested change

// Final cleanup in temp location

fileAccess.delete(this.context.getIdeHome());

hohwille · 2026-05-17T14:18:54Z

+      // Repository seems to be invalid. Clean up temporary location and return error
+      fileAccess.delete(this.context.getIdeHome());
+      throw new CliException("This repository does not include an " + EnvironmentVariables.DEFAULT_PROPERTIES + " or " + EnvironmentVariables.LEGACY_PROPERTIES + " file at the top level or a settings folder with such a file. "
+      + "The repository does not seem to be a valid IDEasy repository. Please verify the repository and try again.");


dont delete the entire project.
You can either delete the settings here or IMHO even better would be to just return failure (e.g. false while otherwise true is returned for success) and let the calling logic handle the cleanup so in case of ide update we can just delete the settings and in case of ide create we can delete the temp project.

hohwille · 2026-05-17T14:22:01Z

-    }
+    String userPromt = "Repository URL [" + IdeContext.DEFAULT_SETTINGS_REPO_URL + "]:";
+    String defaultUrl = IdeContext.DEFAULT_SETTINGS_REPO_URL;
+    LOG.info(MESSAGE_SETTINGS_REPO_URL, this.context.getSettingsPath());


fine but you then also need to include an update to the documentation that otherwise gets inconsistent:
https://github.com/devonfw/IDEasy/blob/main/documentation/settings.adoc#code-repository

hohwille · 2026-05-17T14:25:09Z

  protected String getStepMessage() {

-    return "Create (clone) " + (isCodeRepository() ? "code" : "settings") + " repository";
+    return "Creating (Cloning) repository";


For steps we always use infinitive (e.g. to add prefixes in log message like starting step ..., step ... failed, or even failed to ...)

Suggested change

return "Creating (Cloning) repository";

return "Create (clone) repository";

…verification

areinicke added 3 commits April 27, 2026 13:16

WIP Commit

a122556

Update logic

c497948

Removed --code option & Added further functionality

54a1fed

github-project-automation Bot added this to IDEasy board Apr 30, 2026

github-project-automation Bot moved this to 🆕 New in IDEasy board Apr 30, 2026

areinicke self-assigned this Apr 30, 2026

areinicke moved this from 🆕 New to 🏗 In progress in IDEasy board Apr 30, 2026

areinicke added enhancement New feature or request create Create commandlet used to create new IDEasy projects with "ide create" settings ide-settings repo and replated processes and features git git version management tool integration labels Apr 30, 2026

Fix tests

90e43e7

areinicke added 8 commits April 30, 2026 10:44

Merge branch 'main' into feature/1695-clone-settings-to-temp-dir-for-…

5dba7b5

…verification

Update comments

aa751ff

Merge branch 'feature/1695-clone-settings-to-temp-dir-for-verificatio…

b19c6eb

…n' of https://github.com/areinicke/IDEasy into feature/1695-clone-settings-to-temp-dir-for-verification

formatting cleanup

3e936dc

Minor code refactor

9bee5f1

Update comments

29f6d1f

Update changelog

8b69339

Add test case for invalid repository

d1bfbf5

areinicke marked this pull request as ready for review April 30, 2026 10:08

areinicke moved this from 🏗 In progress to Team Review in IDEasy board Apr 30, 2026

areinicke added 2 commits April 30, 2026 12:18

Replace hard coded variables

64f1220

Fix tests

462d6d5

laim2003 self-assigned this Apr 30, 2026

laim2003 self-requested a review April 30, 2026 10:55

satorus self-assigned this Apr 30, 2026

satorus reviewed Apr 30, 2026

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Apply suggestion from @satorus

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Co-authored-by: Robin Wenzel <robin@die-wenzels.de>

Move long if checks to own functions

2552b4d

satorus reviewed Apr 30, 2026

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Comment thread cli/src/main/java/com/devonfw/tools/ide/commandlet/AbstractUpdateCommandlet.java Outdated

changed variable name to adhere to coding conventions

d32fc4b

satorus approved these changes Apr 30, 2026

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laim2003 suggested changes Apr 30, 2026

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Comment thread cli/src/main/java/com/devonfw/tools/ide/commandlet/AbstractUpdateCommandlet.java Outdated

renamed method to follow coding conventions

154ff6c

areinicke moved this from Team Review to 👀 In review in IDEasy board Apr 30, 2026

areinicke requested a review from laim2003 May 6, 2026 08:49

laim2003 approved these changes May 6, 2026

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hohwille requested changes May 17, 2026

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Merge branch 'main' into feature/1695-clone-settings-to-temp-dir-for-…

6ce1e46

…verification

	* or a code repository (with a settings folder on the top level containing such a file). Otherwise, the project creatio fails and an error message is logged.
	* or a code repository (with a settings folder on the top level containing such a file). Otherwise, the project creation fails and an error message is logged.

	return Files.exists(repositoryPath.resolve("settings").resolve(EnvironmentVariables.DEFAULT_PROPERTIES)) \|\| Files.exists(repositoryPath.resolve("settings").resolve(EnvironmentVariables.LEGACY_PROPERTIES));
	return isSettingsRepository(repositoryPath.resolve(IdeContext.FOLDER_SETTINGS));

		// Delete empty settings folder in IDE_ROOT/<project_name> so we can create a symlink in the next step
		fileAccess.delete(actualProjectPath.resolve(projectName).resolve("settings"));

		// Final cleanup in temp location
		fileAccess.delete(this.context.getIdeHome());

	return "Creating (Cloning) repository";
	return "Create (clone) repository";

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areinicke commented Apr 30, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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This PR fixes #1695

Implemented changes:

Checklist for this PR

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Coverage Report for CI Build 25993814010

Coverage decreased (-0.2%) to 70.496%

Details

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areinicke commented Apr 30, 2026 •

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