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No evidence shows that Git as a whole will stop working in 2100. The narrower issue is that a Git date-parser change sets an upper bound of December 31, 2099, at 23:59:59 UTC for dates it parses. That is a limit on date parsing—not a forecast that repositories, Git commands, or every Git-based service will shut down.
What the 2099 limit actually applies to
Git records dates in commits, and the cited parser change checks for dates beyond its maximum of 2099-12-31T23:59:59Z. This supports a precise conclusion: that parser rejects dates above its selected ceiling. It does not show that Git stops operating in 2100, or that all Git versions and tools share the same behavior.
The change is dated June 25, 2024, and is available in a third-party mirror of Git’s source history. Its evidence is specific to the parser change; it should not be read as a guarantee about future releases or every implementation.
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How Git represents commit dates
A commit object includes an author and the time the work was authored, as well as a committer and the time the commit was committed. These are distinct fields in Git’s data model. Git’s documented internal date representation is a Unix timestamp—the number of seconds since the Unix epoch—along with a time-zone offset. For author and committer date inputs, Git also documents RFC 2822 and ISO 8601 formats.
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These details describe dates associated with commits. They do not establish how every timestamp in a workflow is represented or processed by hosting services, graphical clients, integrations, continuous-integration systems, filesystems, or operating systems.
How this differs from the Year 2038 issue
The same parser change notes a separate limitation: purely 32-bit systems cannot express timestamps beyond 2038. That is a platform timestamp-width issue, not the parser’s 2099 maximum.
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| Issue | Boundary | What the cited evidence says |
|---|---|---|
| Git date-parser ceiling | 2099-12-31T23:59:59Z | The cited parser change sets this as its maximum parseable date. |
| Timestamp range on purely 32-bit systems | Beyond 2038 | The cited change says these systems cannot express timestamps beyond 2038. |
The dates concern different layers and should not be treated as competing estimates for when Git will stop working.
What can and cannot be concluded
- Supported: Git’s documentation describes commit dates as Unix timestamps with time-zone offsets, and documents RFC 2822 and ISO 8601 date inputs.
- Supported: The cited parser change selects a maximum of 2099-12-31T23:59:59Z and distinguishes the 32-bit timestamp limit.
- Not established: That Git itself, all repositories, or every Git operation will stop working in 2100.
- Not established: What every future Git client, hosting provider, integration, or operating system will do after 2099.
Those other components would need to be evaluated independently. The available evidence does not justify claiming either that all will fail or that all will be unaffected.
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Sources
- Git documentation: git-commit, including date formats and the internal timestamp representation.
- Git documentation: Git Objects, describing author and committer information in commit objects.
- Git parser change dated June 25, 2024, mirrored on PowerEL’s Git server, specifying the date ceiling and noting the purely 32-bit limitation.
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