Excluding a git remote from "fetch --all"

Question

Is it possible to have configured remotes in git that are only fetched when formally requested by its name? So they would be excluded of operations like fetch --all.

Imagine a dormant (disabled, or something) remote called "my-no-auto-fetch-remote":

$ git fetch my-no-auto-fetch-remote

(it's fetched)

$ git fetch --all

(the my-no-auto-fetch-remote shouldn't be fetched)

Answer 1

There is a configuration skipFetchAll for remotes.

From the documentation on: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-config/1.9.2

remote..skipFetchAll

If true, this remote will be skipped by default when updating using git-fetch[1] or the update subcommand of git-remote[1].

As there is no option at command line when adding or changing a remote, I had to put that configuration editing the .git/config file, as:

[remote "my-remote"]
        url = git@the-repository-url
        fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/my-remote/*
        skipFetchAll = true

You can add this from the command-line using

git config remote.my-remote.skipFetchAll true

where my-remote is the remote name that should be excluded from git fetch --all.

Answer 2

Not really, no: --all means all. But you can define remote groups, and use git remote update to update the groups. Put the normally-unavailable remote into a group that's not the default group. See the git remote documentation for details.

(git fetch also works with groups, I just prefer to use git remote when dealing with groups and git fetch for one individual remote, myself. Probably a holdover from a decade-plus ago...)