SG-39245 Refactor git descriptors

[mathbou]

Hi there,

I was looking at my temp folder while doing some tests with the tk-core, and I saw that each time I reload an engine, a massive amount of temporary clone folders were created (associated with a big network load). By digging into the source code of git descriptors, I found that they clone repos each and every time they needs to execute a command in it.

So here is a PR with a big refactoring of the git, git_tag and git_branch descriptors:

• replace git clone with git ls-remote when fetching tags/commit values, checking remote access
• Add version pattern and get_latest support for git branch, and improve the logic for git tag
• Add caching system to avoid processing the same repo multiple times

[codecov]

Codecov Report

Attention: Patch coverage is 91.01796% with 15 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.

Project coverage is 73.76%. Comparing base (0158a91) to head (8ddde7e).

Files with missing lines	Patch %	Lines
python/tank/descriptor/io_descriptor/git.py	87.77%	11 Missing ⚠️
python/tank/descriptor/io_descriptor/git_tag.py	93.47%	3 Missing ⚠️
python/tank/descriptor/io_descriptor/git_branch.py	96.55%	1 Missing ⚠️

❗ There is a different number of reports uploaded between BASE (0158a91) and HEAD (8ddde7e). Click for more details.

HEAD has 9 uploads less than BASE

Flag	BASE (0158a91)	HEAD (8ddde7e)
	18	9

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##           master     #913      +/-   ##
==========================================
- Coverage   79.78%   73.76%   -6.02%     
==========================================
  Files         198      198              
  Lines       20773    20818      +45     
==========================================
- Hits        16574    15357    -1217     
- Misses       4199     5461    +1262     

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[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR refactors the git descriptors to reduce network load and improve performance by replacing full repository clones with remote queries and caching. Key changes include:

• Switching from “git clone” to “git ls-remote” when fetching remote information.
• Adding version pattern matching, get_latest support for git branch/tag descriptors.
• Implementing a caching mechanism to prevent redundant processing.

Reviewed Changes

Copilot reviewed 8 out of 8 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
tests/descriptor_tests/test_io_descriptors.py	Updated the version attribute type for consistent string handling.
tests/descriptor_tests/test_git.py	Updated expected commit/tag values to align with the refactored descriptor logic.
tests/descriptor_tests/test_downloadables.py	Replaced shutil.move with a copytree/rmtree approach with onerror callback.
tests/descriptor_tests/test_descriptors.py	Updated command validation to use the new _get_git_clone_commands method.
python/tank/util/filesystem.py	Added a writable check and chmod call when the destination file is read-only.
python/tank/descriptor/io_descriptor/git_tag.py	Improved tag fetching logic with refined exception handling and clearer logging.
python/tank/descriptor/io_descriptor/git_branch.py	Made the “version” field optional and streamlined branch-related git commands.
python/tank/descriptor/io_descriptor/git.py	Reworked internal git command executions, introduced _normalize_path, and implemented a caching metaclass for git descriptors.

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

python/tank/descriptor/io_descriptor/git.py:70

• The cache timeout calculation uses time()/100 and a modulus of 2, resulting in a cache window of approximately 200 seconds, which does not match the documented 2 minute validity. Consider reviewing and adjusting the computation to accurately reflect the intended duration.

        now = int(time() / 100)