Local Git Repo override does not work

[aaronjensen]

Describe the problem as clearly as you can

The "Local Git Repos" feature does not appear to work at all.

See https://bundler.io/v2.5/man/bundle-config.1.html#LOCAL-GIT-REPOS

If you follow that example, it doesn't appear to either install the local version or use it with bundle exec.

Did you try upgrading rubygems & bundler?

Yes

Post steps to reproduce the problem

1. Clone rack: git@github.com:rack/rack.git.

2. Make some change in rack like add raise "test" to the top of lib/rack.rb

3. Create a new directory with this Gemfile:

   source "https://rubygems.org"
   
   gem "rack"
   

4. bundle config --local path gems

5. bundle config set --local local.rack ~/Work/git/rack (adjust to your rack path)

6. bundle install

Which command did you run?

bundle install

What were you expecting to happen?

The local version of git would be used

What actually happened?

It installed the rubygems version

If not included with the output of your command, run bundle env and paste the output below

Environment

Bundler       2.6.6
  Platforms   ruby, arm64-darwin-24
Ruby          3.4.1p0 (2024-12-25 revision 48d4efcb85000e1ebae42004e963b5d0cedddcf2) [arm64-darwin-24]
  Full Path   /Users/some-user/.asdf/installs/ruby/3.4.1/bin/ruby
  Config Dir  /Users/some-user/.asdf/installs/ruby/3.4.1/etc
RubyGems      3.6.6
  Gem Home    /Users/some-user/.asdf/installs/ruby/3.4.1/lib/ruby/gems/3.4.0
  Gem Path    /Users/some-user/.gem/ruby/3.4.0:/Users/some-user/.asdf/installs/ruby/3.4.1/lib/ruby/gems/3.4.0
  User Home   /Users/some-user
  User Path   /Users/some-user/.gem/ruby/3.4.0
  Bin Dir     /Users/some-user/.asdf/installs/ruby/3.4.1/bin
Tools         
  Git         2.48.1
  RVM         not installed
  rbenv       not installed
  chruby      not installed

Bundler Build Metadata

Built At          2025-03-13
Git SHA           25cf0763954
Released Version  true

Bundler settings

disable_local_branch_check
  Set for the current user (/Users/some-user/.bundle/config): true
gem.coc
  Set for the current user (/Users/some-user/.bundle/config): false
gem.mit
  Set for the current user (/Users/some-user/.bundle/config): false
gem.test
  Set for the current user (/Users/some-user/.bundle/config): false
jobs
  Set for the current user (/Users/some-user/.bundle/config): 12
local.rack
  Set for your local app (/Users/some-user/Source/open/test/.bundle/config): "/Users/some-user/Source/open/rack"
path
  Set for your local app (/Users/some-user/Source/open/test/.bundle/config): "gems"

Gemfile

Gemfile

source "https://rubygems.org"

gem "rack"

Gemfile.lock

GEM
  remote: https://rubygems.org/
  specs:
    rack (3.1.12)

PLATFORMS
  arm64-darwin-24
  ruby

DEPENDENCIES
  rack

BUNDLED WITH
   2.6.6

[Edouard-chin]

👋 I think the local git repos feature only work when the gem in your gemfile points to a remote git repo and that the branch of your local repo is the same as the one your gemfile points to.

https://bundler.io/v2.5/man/bundle-config.1.html#LOCAL-GIT-REPOS

Bundler does many checks to ensure a developer won't work with invalid references. Particularly, we force a developer to specify a branch in the Gemfile in order to use this feature.

[aaronjensen]

Ah. Well that explains it. That's too bad, this feature isn't what I was looking for then.

I wonder if there should be a warning when this happens? The docs bury the lead a bit too (I did look at the docs, but clearly did not read them carefully enough to see that line.

Maintainers: Please feel free to close this, but please do consider whether or not adding a warning and/or updating the docs is appropriate.

Thank you.

[Edouard-chin]

FWIW I also tripped over this a couple time and ultimately found that this feature doesn't suit my workflow very often and isn't very useful (to me at least).

I don't work on many projects specifying git gems so whenever I try to fix an issue in a dependency that my project relies on I just end up modifying the gemfile and point the gem to gem 'foo', path: '...'