By default Magit automatically reverts buffers that are visiting files that are being tracked in a Git repository, after they have changed on disk. When using Magit one often changes files on disk by running Git, i.e., "outside Emacs", making this a rather important feature.
For example, if you discard a change in the status buffer, then that
is done by running git apply --reverse ..., and Emacs considers the
file to have "changed on disk". If Magit did not automatically revert
the buffer, then you would have to type M-x revert-buffer RET RET in
the visiting buffer before you could continue making changes.
When this mode is enabled, then buffers that visit tracked files are automatically reverted after the visited files change on disk.
When this mode is enabled, then any file-visiting buffer is automatically reverted after the visited file changes on disk.
If you like buffers that visit tracked files to be automatically
reverted, then you might also like any buffer to be reverted, not
just those visiting tracked files. If that is the case, then enable
this mode instead of magit-auto-revert-mode.
This option controls whether Magit reverts buffers immediately.
If this is non-nil and either global-auto-revert-mode or
magit-auto-revert-mode is enabled, then Magit immediately reverts
buffers by explicitly calling auto-revert-buffers after running Git
for side-effects.
If auto-revert-use-notify is non-nil (and file notifications are
actually supported), then magit-auto-revert-immediately does not
have to be non-nil, because the reverts happen immediately anyway.
If magit-auto-revert-immediately and auto-revert-use-notify are both
nil, then reverts happen after auto-revert-interval seconds of user
inactivity. That is not desirable.
This option controls whether file notification functions should be
used. Note that this variable unfortunately defaults to t even on
systems on which file notifications cannot be used.
This option controls whether magit-auto-revert-mode only reverts
tracked files or all files that are located inside Git repositories,
including untracked files and files located inside Git’s control
directory.
The global mode magit-auto-revert-mode works by turning on this
local mode in the appropriate buffers (but global-auto-revert-mode
is implemented differently). You can also turn it on or off
manually, which might be necessary if Magit does not notice that a
previously untracked file now is being tracked or vice-versa.
This option controls whether the arrival of user input suspends the
automatic reverts for auto-revert-interval seconds.
This option controls how many seconds Emacs waits for before resuming suspended reverts.
This option specifies an additional filter used by
auto-revert-buffers to determine whether a buffer should be reverted
or not.
This option is provided by Magit, which also advises
auto-revert-buffers to respect it. Magit users who do not turn on
the local mode auto-revert-mode themselves, are best served by
setting the value to magit-auto-revert-repository-buffer-p.
However the default is nil, so as not to disturb users who do use the local mode directly. If you experience delays when running Magit commands, then you should consider using one of the predicates provided by Magit - especially if you also use Tramp.
Users who do turn on auto-revert-mode in buffers in which Magit
doesn’t do that for them, should likely not use any filter. Users
who turn on global-auto-revert-mode, do not have to worry about this
option, because it is disregarded if the global mode is enabled.
This option controls whether Emacs reports when a buffer has been reverted.
The options with the auto-revert- prefix are located in the Custom
group named auto-revert. The other, Magit-specific, options are
located in the magit group.