How to fix error: invalid path 'filename.' - trailing dot not allowed on Windows in Git

First, determine which files have trailing dots. You can do this from WSL2, a Linux machine, or macOS:

# Clone on a Unix-like system first
git clone <repository-url>
cd <repository>

# Find all files with trailing dots
find . -name "*." -type f

# Or use git ls-tree to see files without checking out
git ls-tree -r --name-only HEAD | grep '\.$'

If you only have Windows available, use WSL2:

# In WSL2 terminal
git clone <repository-url>
find . -name "*." -type f

The cleanest solution is to rename the problematic files. Do this on Linux, macOS, or in WSL2:

# Example: rename a specific file
git mv "config." "config"

# Or rename with a more descriptive extension
git mv "data." "data.txt"

# Commit the changes
git commit -m "fix: Rename files with trailing dots for Windows compatibility"

# Push to share the fix with the team
git push

If there are many files to rename, you can script it:

# Find and rename all files ending with a dot
find . -name "*." -type f | while read file; do
  newname="${file%.}"  # Remove trailing dot
  git mv "$file" "$newname"
done

git commit -m "fix: Remove trailing dots from filenames for Windows compatibility"
git push

If you cannot modify the repository, you can work with it using Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2):

# Install WSL2 if not already installed (run in PowerShell as Administrator)
wsl --install

# Open WSL2 and clone the repository there
wsl
cd ~
git clone <repository-url>

Important: Clone into the WSL2 filesystem (/home/username/) rather than the Windows filesystem (/mnt/c/). This gives you full Unix compatibility and better performance.

You can still access and edit these files from Windows:
- VS Code: Use the "Remote - WSL" extension
- File Explorer: Navigate to \\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\username\repo

Warning: This option has security implications. Only use it temporarily if you fully trust the repository.

You can disable the NTFS protection to allow the checkout:

# Disable protection (security risk!)
git config --global core.protectNTFS false

# Now clone
git clone <repository-url>

# Re-enable protection after cloning
git config --global core.protectNTFS true

Security implications: CVE-2019-1353 exploits path handling differences to perform directory traversal attacks. With core.protectNTFS disabled, a malicious repository could potentially write files outside the working directory.

Even with this disabled, Windows will still mangle the filenames (stripping the trailing dot), which may cause other issues with the repository.

If you don't need the files with trailing dots, use sparse checkout to exclude them:

# Enable sparse checkout
git clone --no-checkout <repository-url>
cd <repository>
git sparse-checkout init --cone

# Include only specific directories (excluding problematic files)
git sparse-checkout set src docs

# Complete the checkout
git checkout

Or explicitly exclude specific patterns:

git sparse-checkout init
echo '/*' > .git/info/sparse-checkout
echo '!problematic-directory/' >> .git/info/sparse-checkout
git checkout

This allows you to work with most of the repository while avoiding the incompatible files.

If you don't have write access to the repository, contact the maintainers to request a fix:

Example issue template:

> Title: Files with trailing dots prevent cloning on Windows
>
> Description: The repository contains files ending with periods (e.g., config.), which cannot be checked out on Windows due to filesystem limitations.
>
> Impact: Windows users and CI systems using Windows agents cannot clone or pull this repository.
>
> Suggested fix: Rename the following files to remove trailing dots:
> - path/to/config. -> path/to/config
>
> Reference: Windows API does not support trailing dots in filenames.

Many projects will accept such fixes quickly as they improve cross-platform compatibility.

After applying your chosen solution, verify that the repository works on Windows:

# Fresh clone on Windows
git clone <repository-url>
cd <repository>

# Verify all files are present
git status

# Check for any issues with specific files
git ls-files

If you renamed files, ensure the project still builds and tests pass:

# Run your project's test suite
npm test
# or
python -m pytest
# or your project's test command