OpenAI Builds Pando, a Git Storage System for Parallel Work and Pack Reuse

At a glance

OpenAI introduced Pando, a new storage backend for Git, after its source control system slowed down as parallel development and CI work grew with Codex. The Git usage method stays the same, but Pando is designed to push multiple branches at the same time and reuse prebuilt pack files (bundles of files compressed into one) from a local cache.

Key points

1. 1

   Pushes are handled separately for each branch, so unrelated branches do not wait on each other.

2. 2

   Pack files, which bundle objects together, are reused across many users, reducing load on the server.

3. 3

   After adoption, the median push delay dropped by about 80%, and it can serve about 1 petabyte per day using less CPU, the company said.

4. 4

   The switch was made with no downtime by first placing it in front of the existing system as a relay, and one engineer designed it while an agent team built it, taking 10 weeks to deploy.

Why it matters

As development work grows with AI tools, code repositories can be the first to hit their limits. This case shows how that bottleneck was addressed.