[Bug]: gitfs with pygit2 fails to initialize

What happened?

With a basic gitfs config that uses pygit2 1.20.0 and salt 3008.2, salt-master fails to start with a TypeError.

git_provider: pygit2

gitfs_remotes:
  - git@github.com:myproj/salt.git:
    -  [..]

causes salt-master to fail on startup

# salt-master --log-level debug
[...]
                "The installed version of pygit2 (%s) does not support "
[...]
[CRITICAL] Exception caught while initializing gitfs remote 'git@github.com:myproj/salt.git': expected str, bytes, or bytearray not <class 'NoneType'>
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/opt/saltstack/salt/lib/python3.14/site-packages/salt/utils/gitfs.py", line 1805, in __init__
    self.new = self.init_remote()
               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
  File "/opt/saltstack/salt/lib/python3.14/site-packages/salt/utils/gitfs.py", line 2094, in init_remote
    self.gitdir = salt.utils.path.join(self.repo.workdir, ".git")
                  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/opt/saltstack/salt/lib/python3.14/site-packages/salt/utils/path.py", line 269, in join
    parts = [salt.utils.stringutils.to_str(part) for part in parts]
             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^
  File "/opt/saltstack/salt/lib/python3.14/site-packages/salt/utils/stringutils.py", line 90, in to_str
    raise TypeError(f"expected str, bytes, or bytearray not {type(s)}")
TypeError: expected str, bytes, or bytearray not <class 'NoneType'>
[...]

Adding a debug log to utils/gitfs.py at line 2094, we see that self.repo.workdir is None.

        log.debug(f"Constructing path to .git repo using {self.repo.workdir}")
        self.gitdir = salt.utils.path.join(self.repo.workdir, ".git")

gives us [DEBUG ] Constructing path to .git repo using None

Changing gitfs_provider to gitcli allow salt-master to start correctly.

It looks like there might be something that does not get initialized correctly on the fallback path when pygit2 fails.

Type of salt install

Official rpm

Major version

3008.x

What supported OS are you seeing the problem on? Can select multiple. (If bug appears on an unsupported OS, please open a GitHub Discussion instead)

rockylinux-9

salt --versions-report output

Salt Version:
          Salt: 3008.2

Python Version:
        Python: 3.14.6 (main, Jun 11 2026, 02:19:05) [GCC 11.2.0]

Dependency Versions:
          cffi: 2.0.0
      cherrypy: 18.10.0
  cryptography: 48.0.0
      dateutil: 2.9.0.post0
     docker-py: Not Installed
         gitdb: 4.0.12
     gitpython: 3.1.50
        Jinja2: 3.1.6
       libgit2: 1.9.7
  looseversion: 1.3.0
      M2Crypto: Not Installed
          Mako: Not Installed
       msgpack: 1.1.2
  msgpack-pure: Not Installed
  mysql-python: Not Installed
     packaging: 24.0
     pycparser: 3.00
      pycrypto: Not Installed
  pycryptodome: 3.23.0
        pygit2: 1.20.1
  python-gnupg: 0.5.6
        PyYAML: 6.0.3
         PyZMQ: 27.1.0
        relenv: 0.22.14
         smmap: 5.0.2
       timelib: 0.3.0
       Tornado: 6.5.7
           ZMQ: 4.3.5

Salt Package Information:
  Package Type: onedir

System Versions:
          dist: rocky 9.8 Blue Onyx
        locale: utf-8
       machine: x86_64
       release: 5.14.0-687.10.1.el9_8.0.1.x86_64
        system: Linux
       version: Rocky Linux 9.8 Blue Onyx

Start in salt/utils/gitfs.py at GitFS.init and init_remote(), especially the line constructing .git from self.repo.workdir. Reproduce the shown pygit2 configuration with salt-master and trace the fallback path; done means the pygit2 setup no longer fails with a None workdir and salt-master starts successfully.