The slowness of my zsh prompt when in a git-svn managed directory was killing me. I improved it by removing the git status stuff that slows it down...

git_prompt_info.zsh

function git_prompt_info() {
  ref=$(git symbolic-ref HEAD 2> /dev/null) || return
  echo "$ZSH_THEME_GIT_PROMPT_PREFIX${ref#refs/heads/}$ZSH_THEME_GIT_PROMPT_SUFFIX"
}

In my case, this didn't noticeably improve the delay. It has all the same symptoms (no delay outside of Git repo; delay for anything that causes a new prompt to draw, like hitting enter on an empty line, <ctrl+l>, etc.; no delay pressing other keys or while a command is still running.) This does not appear to be related to my network speed. I could post my versions, config files, etc. but I'd like to look find more general alternative approaches first.

For what it's worth, I'm using bhilburn/powerlevel9k with submodule checking disabled, effectively --ignore-submodules=dirty (not that the project I'm testing on has submodules anyway - more complicated projects I've cloned take much longer.)

Would it be possible to set a flag or add a sentinel file somewhere to indicate if/when the local status has actually changed? Maybe caching the command's output and using the cached version if the (parent) directory's modified date is within some threshold of the cache, or if the cache is similarly recent compared to the current time? The worst effects if it malfunctions should be saving the output every time (negligible contribution to original delay) or showing an outdated status, and both should be fixed by re-tuning the threshold, and of course excluding the cache file via .gitignore.

A few benchmarks for reference...
I can't seem to use the time command on git_prompt_info, but 500 iterations of the command (piped to /dev/null; book-ended by date) averaged to 26ms each.
Timing git add -An and git status with the same method each average to 12ms.
Pinging github.com (as a lower bound) shows an average delay of 20-30ms with a few minutes between each run.

where should I insert your code to make it works? thanks!

where should I insert your code to make it works? thanks!

In your ~/.zshrc file.

Everyone seems pretty stoked to be rid of git status from their prompt because the git_current_branch function can be slow for large repos, but if anyone would still like to see info on their current branch you can replace with the following which is still fairly fast:

export PROMPT='${ret_status} %{$fg[cyan]%}%~%{$reset_color%} %{$fg[blue]%}$(git_current_branch)%{$reset_color%} $ '

Could someone clarify: Should one paste the above function git_prompt... into ~/.zshrc? I don't seem to notice a difference, but then I am testing on a small repo.

Git config modification to "hide dirty" check

git config --add oh-my-zsh.hide-dirty 1

https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/blob/master/lib/git.zsh#L16

if [[ "$(command git config --get oh-my-zsh.hide-dirty)" != "1" ]]; then

thank you!

thanks!

Git config modification to "hide dirty" check

git config --add oh-my-zsh.hide-dirty 1

https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/blob/master/lib/git.zsh#L16

if [[ "$(command git config --get oh-my-zsh.hide-dirty)" != "1" ]]; then

Thanks!

If someone uses gruvbox theme on ZSH, you may have to comment out prompt_bzr from build_prompt function in ~/.oh-my-zsh/custom/themes/gruvbox.zsh-theme file.

Or you may check why ZSH lags by executing this

zsh -vx

this saved my day!

Thanks ; would it be enough if I just paste it into .zshrc file?

Awesome and thanks @liladas!
@avatar-lavventura, add this snippet just above the source $ZSH/oh-my-zsh.sh line in your ~/.zshrc

function git_prompt_info() {
  local ref
  if [[ "$(command git config --get oh-my-zsh.hide-dirty)" != "1" ]]; then
    if [[ "$(__git_prompt_git config --get oh-my-zsh.hide-status 2>/dev/null)" != "1" ]]; then
      ref=$(__git_prompt_git symbolic-ref HEAD 2> /dev/null) || \
      ref=$(__git_prompt_git rev-parse --short HEAD 2> /dev/null) || return 0
      echo "$ZSH_THEME_GIT_PROMPT_PREFIX${ref#refs/heads/}$(parse_git_dirty)$ZSH_THEME_GIT_PROMPT_SUFFIX"
    fi
  fi
}

And inside your desired (probably very large) git repo, run this command git config --add oh-my-zsh.hide-dirty 1