Configuring Git Maintenance Schedules on Linux and MacOS

user-scheduled tasks can be found by running `systemctl --user list-timers`. The timers written by `git maintenance start` are similar to this: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- $ systemctl --user list-timers NEXT LEFT LAST PASSED UNIT ACTIVATES Thu 2021-04-29 19:00:00 CEST 42min left Thu 2021-04-29 18:00:11 CEST 17min ago git-maintenance@hourly.timer git-maintenance@hourly.service Fri 2021-04-30 00:00:00 CEST 5h 42min left Thu 2021-04-29 00:00:11 CEST 18h ago git-maintenance@daily.timer git-maintenance@daily.service Mon 2021-05-03 00:00:00 CEST 3 days left Mon 2021-04-26 00:00:11 CEST 3 days ago git-maintenance@weekly.timer git-maintenance@weekly.service ----------------------------------------------------------------------- One timer is registered for each `--schedule=<frequency>` option. The definition of the systemd units can be inspected in the following files: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ~/.config/systemd/user/git-maintenance@.timer ~/.config/systemd/user/git-maintenance@.service ~/.config/systemd/user/timers.target.wants/git-maintenance@hourly.timer ~/.config/systemd/user/timers.target.wants/git-maintenance@daily.timer ~/.config/systemd/user/timers.target.wants/git-maintenance@weekly.timer ----------------------------------------------------------------------- `git maintenance start` will overwrite these files and start the timer again with `systemctl --user`, so any customization should be done by creating a drop-in file, i.e. a `.conf` suffixed file in the `~/.config/systemd/user/git-maintenance@.service.d` directory. `git maintenance stop` will stop the user systemd timers and delete the above mentioned files. For more details, see `systemd.timer(5)`. BACKGROUND MAINTENANCE ON MACOS SYSTEMS --------------------------------------- While macOS technically supports `cron`, using `crontab -e` requires elevated privileges and the executed process does not have a full user context. Without a full user context, Git and its credential helpers cannot access stored credentials, so some maintenance tasks are not functional. Instead, `git maintenance start` interacts with the `launchctl` tool, which is the recommended way to schedule timed jobs in macOS. Scheduling maintenance through `git maintenance (start|stop)`

Git maintenance schedules can be managed using systemd timers on Linux and launchctl on MacOS, with the git maintenance start command creating and starting timers, and git maintenance stop stopping and deleting them, and users can customize schedules by creating drop-in files or using the launchctl tool.