# When NOT to use sgit — Docs

> The honest page: sgit's edges, stated plainly, plus the current roadmap gaps.

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[Docs](index.md) / Project

# When NOT to use sgit

Every tool earns trust faster by stating its edges. Here are sgit's, plainly.

## Don't use sgit if…

- **You need a secrets manager.** sgit refuses to commit `.env` files, `.netrc`, private keys and friends — deliberately. Use a purpose-built secrets manager for credentials; use sgit for documents, data, and working files.
- **You need long-term API stability guarantees today.** sgit is in beta: it powers production workflows daily and the vault format is versioned (`sgit migrate` handles upgrades), but commands and flags can still evolve between minor versions. Keep `sgit vault backup` archives of anything precious.
- **You need partial commits.** There is no staging area — a commit snapshots the whole folder. If your workflow depends on committing three of seven changed files, sgit will fight you (use branches instead, or split folders into separate vaults).
- **Your data is huge binaries that change constantly.** Large files work (they're chunk-uploaded past a ~4 MB threshold), but sgit is built for working sets of documents and code-sized files, not video archives. Storage is versioned: history keeps old ciphertext around until pruned.
- **You want the server to do things with your data.** Zero knowledge cuts both ways: the server cannot index, search, preview, or process your content. All intelligence lives client-side — that is the point.
- **You lose keys.** There is no password reset, no recovery, no back door. That's a feature — but only if your key management is real. Password manager, plus `sgit vault backup --include-key` somewhere safe.

## Current gaps (roadmap, honestly)

- **Commit author attribution** is not yet recorded — in multi-agent vaults, per-agent identity currently comes from branch IDs, not signed authorship. Signature slots exist in the format; population is planned work.
- **Merge drivers** are whole-file three-way. Structured merges (JSON-aware, union) are designed but not yet shipped.
- **Bare clones** (`clone --bare`) are incomplete.
- **The full CLI reference** on this site is still being wired to its generator (it will be produced from the CLI's own argument parser on every release, so it can never go stale).

## What PKI does not do yet

[Keypairs](pki.md) ship and work — keygen, export, import, sign, verify, encrypt, decrypt all round-trip on v0.15.0. The layer around them is thinner than the primitives:

- **No revocation, expiry or rotation workflow.** No CRL, no `sgit pki revoke`. A compromised private key means generating a new pair and redistributing the bundle out of band, by hand.
- **No directory and no web of trust.** Verifying that a fingerprint belongs to who you think is entirely your problem — compare out of band, as with SSH host keys.
- **Lane addressing is not wired end to end.** The intended model is `append_token = H(public key)`, so a sender derives your [message lane](vault-messaging.md) address from the key you published. The server side ships; no shipped command emits that token, so today you agree one out of band. Details and the interim recipe are in the [addressing note](vault-messaging.md#addressing).
- **Only the first mode is built.** Signing and encrypting files, plus the append transport. The richer modes — group addressing, key discovery, delegated capability — are designs, not code.

Said plainly because the alternative is worse: an agent that reads an over-claiming page will build on a step that does not exist, and only find out at runtime.

If one of these gaps blocks you, say so on [GitHub](https://github.com/SGit-AI/SGit-AI__CLI/issues) — real usage reports move the roadmap.

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