lib/PublicInbox/SolverGit.pm | 6 ++++--

diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/SolverGit.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/SolverGit.pm
index 51be2cdf91f0d6fed4e41f8b11dc7c3eda2cdc48..42bb6033176b97cf513abf1c2e6132129a29f8e7 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/SolverGit.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/SolverGit.pm
@@ -221,11 +221,13 @@ 	my $oid_full = $existing->[1];
 	my ($r, $w);
 	my $path_a = $di->{path_a} or die "BUG: path_a missing for $oid_full";
 	my $mode_a = $di->{mode_a} || extract_old_mode($di);
-	my @git = (qw(git -C), $wt_dir);
 
+	# unlike git-apply(1), this only gets called once in a patch
+	# series and happens too quickly to be worth making async:
 	pipe($r, $w) or die "pipe: $!";
 	my $rdr = { 0 => fileno($r) };
-	my $pid = spawn([@git, qw(update-index -z --index-info)], {}, $rdr);
+	my $pid = spawn([qw(git -C), $wt_dir,
+			 qw(update-index -z --index-info)], undef, $rdr);
 	close $r or die "close pipe(r): $!";
 	print $w "$mode_a $oid_full\t$path_a\0" or die "print update-index: $!";