Cursor's deep dive on Git at any scale: running Origin like a database
vmg · x · 2026-08-19
Cursor engineer Vicent Martí published a 27-minute read tracing 20 years of Git infrastructure and explaining how that history led Cursor to design and operate its Git storage, Origin, as if it were a database.
The post argues Git's distributed nature is now more hindrance than advantage: the average open-source project and company rely on a centralized host, and hosting Git at scale is extremely hard because in a DVCS every repository copy is identical—the server holds nothing special.
The author also shares lessons from 10 years at GitHub, what worked, and what Origin is improving, stressing the care put into the effort.
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