[[!comment format=mdwn
 username="joey"
 subject="""comment 2"""
 date="2020-05-04T16:13:02Z"
 content="""
git-annex cannot possibly support operation over the git protocol, because
that protocol does not have any way to add an extension such as git-annex
to it.

So git-annex currently completely ignores git:// repositories, the same as
it would any git repository using some other foreign protocol.
(eg rsync or a protocol added by a git extension)

This is actually identical behavior to if the remote had "url =
/media/whatever" and the drive was unmounted after the repo was cloned.
git-annex is not able to discover a uuid for the remote, and so it does
not know the remote contains the content, and so it does not say anything
about not being able to get the content from the remote, because it
never tried. IOW, this is a "beware of the leopard" situation.

So, it would better for this to be handled the same way that a ssh remote
that lacks git-annex-shell is handled, by explicitly setting annex-ignore
on first use and displaying a warning. (Although it should not set
annex-ignore for the /media/whatever case, because the drive may later get
mounted again.)
"""]]
