12k git repos can happen if the team uses github enterprise with forking internally. It can also happen in franken-build systems which encourage decoupling by

12k git repos can happen if the team uses github enterprise with forking internally. It can also happen in franken-build systems which encourage decoupling by making separate repos: one repo that defines a service’s API, containing just proto (for example). A second repo that contains generated client code, a third with generated server code, a fourth for implementation, a fifth which supplies integration test harnesses, etc… Sound insane? It is! But its also how an awful lot of stuff worked at AWS, just as an example.