Try it in 5 minutes

This page takes you from nothing to a landed change in about five minutes.

Install

brew install kabirnarang39/tap/pando

Other ways:

# macOS and Linux, verifies the release checksum
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kabirnarang39/pando/main/install.sh | sh

# Docker (a server on the network needs a token; pick your own secret)
docker run -p 7420:7420 -e PANDO_TOKENS="me:$(openssl rand -hex 24)" ghcr.io/kabirnarang39/pando:latest

# From source
cargo install --git https://github.com/kabirnarang39/pando pando-vcs pando-server

Windows: download the .zip from the releases page.

You get three programs: pando (the client), pandod (server, cache and node daemon) and git-remote-pando (lets plain git talk to a Grovedock server).

Run a server

pandod server --listen 127.0.0.1:7420

With no options the server keeps everything in ./pando-data/ on SQLite and accepts requests without authentication, so it listens only on 127.0.0.1.

Note

That is fine on a laptop. Before anyone else connects, give it tokens or single sign-on: see Deploy and Security and audit.

Import a git repository

pando import-git ~/code/my-repo --server http://127.0.0.1:7420

Import is deterministic and incremental: run it again later and it uploads only new commits. pando export-git goes the other way, with identical trees, and pando mirror keeps a git host such as GitHub or Bitbucket up to date continuously.

Make and land a change

pando clone http://127.0.0.1:7420 work
cd work
echo hello > hello.txt
pando commit -m "Say hello"
pando land

pando commit creates the commit on the server from the files you changed. pando land moves main to include it. If someone landed first and your change touches different files, the server rebases it for you; there is nothing to pull and retry.

Files matched by .gitignore or .pandoignore (same syntax) are left out. .sapignore, the old name, still works but is deprecated.

To check out part of a large repository, add --path:

pando clone http://127.0.0.1:7420 api --path services/api

Read without a clone

export PANDO_SERVER=http://127.0.0.1:7420
pando cat main services/api/config.yaml
pando log services/api
pando ls main services

Inside a workspace these commands use the workspace’s server when PANDO_SERVER is unset, so it is only needed elsewhere. --server always wins; a PANDO_SERVER that names the workspace’s own server without a repository keeps the workspace’s repository.

A team server with browser sign-in gives the CLI a token without anyone handing one out:

pando login https://pando.example.com     # opens the browser; the token is saved for this server
pando whoami
pando logout                              # revokes it

Commands use --token, then PANDO_TOKEN, then the token pando login saved. How sign-in is set up on the server is in Sign-in, organisations, invitations.

Mount instead of checking out

A mount shows a whole revision at once and downloads a file only when something reads it, which suits big repositories and CI jobs that touch a few files:

mkdir ~/main && pando mount ~/main --rev main      # Ctrl-C to unmount

It works on Linux (FUSE), macOS (built in, nothing to install) and Windows (the built-in Projected File System; enable it once with Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Client-ProjFS). Mounts are read-only; use pando clone to make changes. If your Mac’s management policy refuses the mount, run pando mount ~/main --serve-only and have an administrator run the command it prints.

Lock files that cannot be merged

Art, models, video and other binaries cannot be merged, so two people editing one at the same time lose someone’s work. Lock the file first:

pando lock art/hero.psd          # others can still read it, but cannot land changes to it
pando locks art                  # who holds what
pando unlock art/hero.psd        # or --force to release someone else's lock

A land that changes a file someone else has locked is refused with rejected: `art/hero.psd` is locked by alice. Locks need write access to the path, and every lock and unlock is recorded in the audit log.

Point agents at it: Agents and MCP.
Keep using git against the same server: Coming from git.
Keep GitHub current while you try it: Mirror to a git host.
Run it for a team: Deploy.

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