It's not a workaround. In this case it seems like it, but in general you cannot always rely on your existing tests covering everything. The test you run in the bisect is often updated to catch something new which is reported. The process is often:

1. Start with working code

2. Introduce bug

3. Identify bug

4. Write a regression test

5. Bisect with new test

In many cases you can skip the bisect because the description of the bug makes it clear where the issue is, but not always.

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Izkata 4 days ago | parent [-]

Important addendum to 4 that can throw someone their first time - Put the new test in a new file and don't commit it to the repo yet. You don't want it to disappear or conflict with old versions of the test file when bisect checks old commits.

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nixpulvis 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I've always liked having regression tests somewhat isolated anyway, so this works well with that.

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lloydatkinson 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

This is one annoying footgun. It would be great if git could ignore some special .bisect directory during the entire process. This way the script doesn’t need a load of ../..

	▲	trenchpilgrim 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Create a .bisect directory and stick a gitignore inside it that ignores the folder. Or, add .bisect/ to a global gitignore file.
	▲	1718627440 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		You can checkout the bisect script commit in another directoy. Or use $git bisect run $(git show ...).