Make a TFVC Shelveset into a git commit

16 September 2025

This post belongs in an earlier time, but I’m repatriating (read: burning) a load of old content from a work wiki and I thought some poor soul out there on the web might still need help with migrating from TFVC to git 🙏

Say you are trying to take a set of changes made to a TFVC/TFS repository and apply those changes to a git repository.

You could try and use tf diff /format:unified but it produces garbage. Here is another way:

Part 0. Have a shelveset targeting Main

To create a shelveset of changes that apply to $/MyProject/Main:

• Start a Merge of e.g. CoolFeature → Main,
• Instead of Checking In the changes to Main, Shelve them instead
• Abort the merge
• Undo All

Part 1. TFS Shelveset into patch file

We are going to temporarily set up a git repo in the checked-out TFS folder just to allow us to generate a diff using git diff. Here we go:

• Have a pre-existing shelveset of changes that apply to $/MyProject/Main
• Go to D:/TFS/MyProject/Main
• Revert to clean status (Undo all)
• Add a .gitignore file (like the Visual Studio exemplar from the GitHub gitignore repo)
• git init
• git add -A
• git commit -m 'Original'
• Unshelve the shelveset
• git diff > cool-feature.patch

Part 2. Apply patch file to git repo

• Copy the patch file to near the actual git repo (i.e. one level up in /d/git)
• Go into the directory of the git repo
• Check out the existing or new branch where the patch is going to apply
  • git checkout -b cool-feature-changes
• git apply ../cool-feature.patch
• Then commit and push the changes to the remote git branch:
  • git add -A
  • git commit -m 'CoolFeature hanging changes'
  • git push -u origin cool-feature-changes

Part 3. Repeating this for more changes/other branches

• Go to D:/TFS/MyProject/Main
• Revert to clean status (Undo all)
  • .git and .gitignore will be left alone
• Unshelve your next set of changes
• git diff > other-changes.patch