How to remove Git repository in TFS 2015?

Question

I'm trying to remove a Git respository in TFS 2015 Update 1. The repository is created inside an existing TFVC team project using the new Git and TFVC in the same project feature. However I can create Git repositories using the TFS portal easily (using the Code tab), I can not find any feature inside the TFS portal or command line based feature to remove a Git repository. Also when I navigate through 'Manage repositories...' I can not find a feature called 'Remove repository'.

I had no luck Googling and searching the MSDN pages on this.

So I do not want to remove the entire team project (because it contains a lot of source code, work items and history), but only an empty Git repository.

Does anyone have a suggestion?

Edit #1 The sub menu that should display the 'Delete repository' option in the administrative pages, does not seem to be enabled when only one Git repository remains in a specific team project (see screenshot). For the record: it is visible when two or more Git repositories are present.

Elmar Elmar · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-04T17:15:11

Quite simple actually when there are multiple git repos in a project:

Select the code tab.
Click on the dropdown where it shows your repos.
Select manage repositories.
Click on the context dropdown next to the repo you want to delete.
Select delete repository.

Edit (based on your edit):

TFS 2015 (update 1) indeed has an explicit minimum limit set for the number of Git repos contained within a TFS team project.

The TFS REST api contains functions which together can be used to delete a git repo but it does not delete the 'last' repo in the TFS project.

Here is the general API documentation

Two functions involved with deleting a git repo are:

Get a list of repositories

(GET VERB) https://{instance}/defaultcollection/[{project}]/_apis/git/repositories?api-version={version}

Which when given a project name returns json containing a list of git repos and their repo ID's.

Delete a repository which when given a repo ID will delete the specified repo.

(DELETE VERB) https://{instance}/defaultcollection/_apis/git/repositories/{repository}?api-version={version}

Unfortunately there is a catch when invoking the delete repo function:

{
"$id": "1"
"innerException": null
"message": "There must always be at least one repository per Team Project."
"typeName": "Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Git.Server.GitRepositoryMinimumPerProjectThresholdExceededException, Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Git.Server, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a"
"typeKey": "GitRepositoryMinimumPerProjectThresholdExceededException"
"errorCode": 0
"eventId": 3000
}

Exception documentation on MSDN

Looking at SQL server on a lab instance I have (in my opinion unsupported if misused in a prod environment)

The TFS database contains a stored procedure which deletes git repos called prc_DeleteGitRepositories, it takes 4 arguments which I hunted down either in the database or hitting F12 on the web-ui.

It is invoked as follows:

EXEC prc_DeleteGitRepositories @partitionId=1, 
@teamProjectUri ='vstfs:///Classification/TestProject1/cbcc3093-247d-448a-8c3b-f5d447fc8afa', 
@repositoryId='4111286D-D066-4F3D-89B9-960055D678FE', 
@deleterId='769254d3-1f13-431c-a580-1500dcbffbce'

That however throws the following in the scenario where only 1 git repo exists in the specified project:

Msg 50000, Level 16, State 1, Procedure prc_DeleteGitRepositories, Line 65
%error="1200013";%:<SERVERNAME>.TestCollection.dbo.prc_DeleteGitRepositories: There must always be at least one repository per Team Project.

So to summarize: a potential feature request best suited to uservoice as discussed in our comments on this Q/A.

How to remove Git repository in TFS 2015?

3 Answers