Add a sparse-checkout option to git repository rules

[anthonymahshigian]

Description of the feature request:

Hi there! I'm requesting that git_override (in bzlmod) be expanded to add a sparse-checkout option. This could be done relatively easy with a custom repository rule back with Workspace, but now with bzlmod I'm hoping to not have to use a module extension to achieve this.
https://bazel.build/rules/lib/globals/module#git_override

Which category does this issue belong to?

External Dependency

What underlying problem are you trying to solve with this feature?

I am dealing with a very large repository, and using the current git_override rule is not feasible.

Which operating system are you running Bazel on?

n/a

What is the output of bazel info release?

n/a

If bazel info release returns development version or (@non-git), tell us how you built Bazel.

n/a

What's the output of git remote get-url origin; git rev-parse HEAD ?

n/a

Have you found anything relevant by searching the web?

I found #13747 that requests a similar feature for git_repository.

Any other information, logs, or outputs that you want to share?

I don't believe this would be too difficult. The additional inputs would be a list of repository paths to checkout (passed down to git). We would also have to enforce the system's git is a minimum version. I'd be happy to take a stab at it myself if someone could confirm this as a valuable addition and point me to the code to modify.

[meteorcloudy]

@lberki Do you think this is doable only for git_repository?

[lberki]

I'm not entirely sure what "only for git_repository" means, but it looks like git_worker.bzl calls out to the git command line tool, so it should be implementable in git_repository() and git_override uses that, so I think the answer to you question is "yes"?

[meteorcloudy]

Yes, the scope is much smaller than adding native support of git sparse-checkout in Bazel. So contribution is welcome!