# Pando — OpenAI rebuilt its Git backend for Codex-scale pushes

> OpenAI's monorepo outgrew normal Git hosting once Codex agents multiplied pushes, so it built Pando.

- Org: OpenAI
- Date: 2026-11-02
- Category: article
- Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50345924
- Canonical page: https://ai-tldr.dev/releases/openai-pando-git-backend/

## In short

OpenAI built Pando, a new Git-compatible backend that now runs its whole monorepo. It cut median push latency by nearly 80% and serves close to a petabyte of Git data a day, with no change to how engineers use Git.

## What it is

Pando is a new server backend for Git repositories that OpenAI built after Codex pushed its monorepo past what its old source-control system could handle. Fetches and pushes were slow and merges failed, with reliability at times below 90%. Pando now powers all development in the monorepo, and engineers and agents still use the normal Git client and protocol.

## How it works

Each push is stored as an immutable packfile in a blob store, and a metadata store records a 'ref version' for that branch. Branches update independently (causal consistency instead of one repository-wide order), so pushes to unrelated branches never wait on each other. On a fetch, Pando picks already-stored packs and sends download links through Git's packfile-uri feature, served from regional caches with over 99% hit rates. Background compaction merges small packs into larger ones, like a log-structured merge tree.

## Why it matters

Coding agents create far more branches, pushes and clones than human teams, and OpenAI says other teams will hit the same limits. The post reports Pando was built with Codex in 10 weeks, written in Rust, and checked with Lean and TLA+ models written by GPT-6 Astra agents. OpenAI is sending its Git client fixes upstream, and says it is exploring ways to share the Pando technology with users.

## Who it's for

platform and dev-infra engineers running big monorepos

## Try it

Read the post at openai.com/index/scaling-git-at-openai, or OpenAI's Git client fork at github.com/openai/git

## Links

- [HN Discussion](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50345924)
- [OpenAI Git Fork](https://github.com/openai/git)
- [Patch Tracker](https://oai-git.openai.chatgpt.site/)