diff --git a/Documentation/config.txt b/Documentation/config.txt
index eb66a11975..00224dea61 100644
--- a/Documentation/config.txt
+++ b/Documentation/config.txt
@@ -616,6 +616,17 @@ core.preferSymlinkRefs::
 	This is sometimes needed to work with old scripts that
 	expect HEAD to be a symbolic link.
 
+core.alternateRefsCommand::
+	When advertising tips of available history from an alternate, use the shell to
+	execute the specified command instead of linkgit:git-for-each-ref[1]. The
+	first argument is the absolute path of the alternate. Output must contain one
+	hex object id per line (i.e., the same as produce by `git for-each-ref
+	--format='%(objectname)'`).
++
+Note that you cannot generally put `git for-each-ref` directly into the config
+value, as it does not take a repository path as an argument (but you can wrap
+the command above in a shell script).
+
 core.bare::
 	If true this repository is assumed to be 'bare' and has no
 	working directory associated with it.  If this is the case a
diff --git a/t/t5410-receive-pack-alternates.sh b/t/t5410-receive-pack-alternates.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..49d0fe44fb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/t/t5410-receive-pack-alternates.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+
+test_description='git receive-pack with alternate ref filtering'
+
+. ./test-lib.sh
+
+test_expect_success 'setup' '
+	test_commit base &&
+	git clone -s --bare . fork &&
+	git checkout -b public/branch master &&
+	test_commit public &&
+	git checkout -b private/branch master &&
+	test_commit private
+'
+
+extract_haves () {
+	depacketize | perl -lne '/^(\S+) \.have/ and print $1'
+}
+
+test_expect_success 'with core.alternateRefsCommand' '
+	write_script fork/alternate-refs <<-\EOF &&
+		git --git-dir="$1" for-each-ref \
+			--format="%(objectname)" \
+			refs/heads/public/
+	EOF
+	test_config -C fork core.alternateRefsCommand alternate-refs &&
+	git rev-parse public/branch >expect &&
+	printf "0000" | git receive-pack fork >actual &&
+	extract_haves <actual >actual.haves &&
+	test_cmp expect actual.haves
+'
+
+test_done
diff --git a/transport.c b/transport.c
index 25d8ea7fe5..19baec7942 100644
--- a/transport.c
+++ b/transport.c
@@ -1328,10 +1328,21 @@ literal_copy:
 static void fill_alternate_refs_command(struct child_process *cmd,
 					const char *repo_path)
 {
-	cmd->git_cmd = 1;
-	argv_array_pushf(&cmd->args, "--git-dir=%s", repo_path);
-	argv_array_push(&cmd->args, "for-each-ref");
-	argv_array_push(&cmd->args, "--format=%(objectname)");
+	const char *value;
+
+	if (!git_config_get_value("core.alternateRefsCommand", &value)) {
+		cmd->use_shell = 1;
+
+		argv_array_push(&cmd->args, value);
+		argv_array_push(&cmd->args, repo_path);
+	} else {
+		cmd->git_cmd = 1;
+
+		argv_array_pushf(&cmd->args, "--git-dir=%s", repo_path);
+		argv_array_push(&cmd->args, "for-each-ref");
+		argv_array_push(&cmd->args, "--format=%(objectname)");
+	}
+
 	cmd->env = local_repo_env;
 	cmd->out = -1;
 }