title: Programmatically read files and information from a Git repository
body: <p>I'm on the road right now and started thinking about a project I plan to work on and have a few questions.</p>
  
  <p>I need to be able to read files and information from a (local) Git repository.  So my initial thought is just to run Git commands just to fetch required information I need.  My other thought is that I could read information from the .git directory which I imagine would be more efficient.  Is there any information on this?  Which is more efficient?
  Thanks!</p>