vost Documentation¶

vost is a versioned key-value filesystem backed by bare Git repositories. Every write produces a new commit, writes of multiple files can be batched, and old snapshots remain accessible forever. The API is refreshingly simple, looking more like a filesystem interface than git. The Python CLI provides Unix-like utility with syntax borrowed from familiar programs like ls, cat, cp, and rsync. Under the hood, though, vost uses bare git repositories fully compatible with other git toolchains.

Quick install¶

pip install vost            # core library
pip install "vost[cli]"    # adds the vost command-line tool

Requires Python 3.10+ and dulwich.

Hello world (Python)¶

from vost import GitStore

repo = GitStore.open("data.git")
fs = repo.branches["main"]
fs = fs.write_text("hello.txt", "Hello, world!")
print(fs.read_text("hello.txt"))  # 'Hello, world!'

Hello world (CLI)¶

export VOST_REPO=data.git
vost init                         # optional — write operations auto-create the repo
echo "Hello, world!" | vost write hello.txt
vost cat hello.txt                # Hello, world!
vost ls                           # hello.txt
vost cp local-dir/ :backup        # copy a directory into the repo
vost log                          # commit history

Reference docs¶

Python API Reference -- classes, methods, and data types
CLI Reference -- the vost command-line tool
CLI Tutorial -- learn the CLI step by step
Path Syntax -- how ref:path works across commands
fsspec Integration -- use vost with pandas, xarray, dask

More¶

GitHub Repository -- source code, issues, and releases
README -- core concepts, concurrency safety, error handling, and development setup
PyPI -- pip install vost