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git-notes last updated in 2.50.0
NAME
git-notes - Add or inspect object notes
SYNOPSIS
git notes [list [<object>]]
git notes add [-f] [--allow-empty] [--[no-]separator | --separator=<paragraph-break>] [--[no-]stripspace] [-F <file> | -m <msg> | (-c | -C) <object>] [-e] [<object>]
git notes copy [-f] ( --stdin | <from-object> [<to-object>] )
git notes append [--allow-empty] [--[no-]separator | --separator=<paragraph-break>] [--[no-]stripspace] [-F <file> | -m <msg> | (-c | -C) <object>] [-e] [<object>]
git notes edit [--allow-empty] [<object>] [--[no-]stripspace]
git notes show [<object>]
git notes merge [-v | -q] [-s <strategy> ] <notes-ref>
git notes merge --commit [-v | -q]
git notes merge --abort [-v | -q]
git notes remove [--ignore-missing] [--stdin] [<object>…]
git notes prune [-n] [-v]
git notes get-ref
DESCRIPTION
Adds, removes, or reads notes attached to objects, without touching
the objects themselves.
By default, notes are saved to and read from refs/notes/commits, but
this default can be overridden. See the OPTIONS, CONFIGURATION, and
ENVIRONMENT sections below. If this ref does not exist, it will be
quietly created when it is first needed to store a note.
A typical use of notes is to supplement a commit message without
changing the commit itself. Notes can be shown by git log along with
the original commit message. To distinguish these notes from the
message stored in the commit object, the notes are indented like the
message, after an unindented line saying "Notes (<refname>):" (or
"Notes:" for refs/notes/commits).
Notes can also be added to patches prepared with git format-patch by
using the --notes option. Such notes are added as a patch commentary
after a three dash separator line.
To change which notes are shown by git log, see the
notes.displayRef discussion in CONFIGURATION.
See the notes.rewrite.<command> configuration for a way to carry
notes across commands that rewrite commits.
SUBCOMMANDS
list -
List the notes object for a given object. If no object is
given, show a list of all note objects and the objects they
annotate (in the format "<note-object> <annotated-object>").
This is the default subcommand if no subcommand is given.
add -
Add notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD). Abort if the
object already has notes (use -f to overwrite existing notes).
However, if you’re using add interactively (using an editor
to supply the notes contents), then - instead of aborting -
the existing notes will be opened in the editor (like the edit
subcommand). If you specify multiple -m and -F, a blank
line will be inserted between the messages. Use the --separator
option to insert other delimiters. You can use -e to edit and
fine-tune the message(s) supplied from -m and -F options
interactively (using an editor) before adding the note.
copy -
Copy the notes for the first object onto the second object (defaults to
HEAD). Abort if the second object already has notes, or if the first
object has none (use -f to overwrite existing notes to the
second object). This subcommand is equivalent to:
git notes add [-f] -C $(git notes list <from-object>) <to-object>
In --stdin mode, take lines in the format
<from-object> SP <to-object> [ SP <rest> ] LF
on standard input, and copy the notes from each <from-object> to its
corresponding <to-object>. (The optional <rest> is ignored so that
the command can read the input given to the post-rewrite hook.)
--stdin cannot be combined with object names given on the command
line.
append -
Append new message(s) given by -m or -F options to an
existing note, or add them as a new note if one does not
exist, for the object (defaults to HEAD). When appending to
an existing note, a blank line is added before each new
message as an inter-paragraph separator. The separator can
be customized with the --separator option.
Edit the notes to be appended given by -m and -F options with
-e interactively (using an editor) before appending the note.
edit -
Edit the notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD).
show -
Show the notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD).
merge -
Merge the given notes ref into the current notes ref.
This will try to merge the changes made by the given
notes ref (called "remote") since the merge-base (if
any) into the current notes ref (called "local").
If conflicts arise and a strategy for automatically resolving
conflicting notes (see the "NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES" section) is not given,
the manual resolver is used. This resolver checks out the
conflicting notes in a special worktree (.git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE),
and instructs the user to manually resolve the conflicts there.
When done, the user can either finalize the merge with
git notes merge --commit, or abort the merge with
git notes merge --abort.
remove -
Remove the notes for given objects (defaults to HEAD). When
giving zero or one object from the command line, this is
equivalent to specifying an empty note message to
the edit subcommand.
In --stdin mode, also remove the object names given on standard
input. In other words, --stdin can be combined with object names from
the command line.
prune -
Remove all notes for non-existing/unreachable objects.
get-ref -
Print the current notes ref. This provides an easy way to
retrieve the current notes ref (e.g. from scripts).
OPTIONS
-f --force -
When adding notes to an object that already has notes,
overwrite the existing notes (instead of aborting).
-m <msg> --message=<msg> -
Use the given note message (instead of prompting).
If multiple -m options are given, their values
are concatenated as separate paragraphs.
-F <file> --file=<file> -
Take the note message from the given file. Use - to
read the note message from the standard input.
-C <object> --reuse-message=<object> -
Take the given blob object (for example, another note) as the
note message. (Use git notes copy <object> instead to
copy notes between objects.) Implies --no-stripspace since
the default behavior is to copy the message verbatim.
-c <object> --reedit-message=<object> -
Like -C, but with -c the editor is invoked, so that
the user can further edit the note message.
--allow-empty -
Allow an empty note object to be stored. The default behavior is
to automatically remove empty notes.
--separator=<paragraph-break> --separator --no-separator -
Specify a string used as a custom inter-paragraph separator
(a newline is added at the end as needed). If --no-separator, no
separators will be added between paragraphs. Defaults to a blank
line.
--stripspace --no-stripspace -
Clean up whitespace. Specifically (see
git-stripspace[1]):
-
remove trailing whitespace from all lines
-
collapse multiple consecutive empty lines into one empty line
-
remove empty lines from the beginning and end of the input
-
add a missing \n to the last line if necessary.
--stripspace is the default except for
-C/--reuse-message. However, keep in mind that this depends on the
order of similar options. For example, for -C <object> -m<message>,
--stripspace will be used because the default for -m overrides the
previous -C. This is a known limitation that may be fixed in the
future.
--ref=<ref> -
Manipulate the notes tree in <ref>. This overrides
GIT_NOTES_REF and the core.notesRef configuration. The ref
specifies the full refname when it begins with refs/notes/; when it
begins with notes/, refs/ and otherwise refs/notes/ is prefixed
to form a full name of the ref.
--ignore-missing -
Do not consider it an error to request removing notes from an
object that does not have notes attached to it.
--stdin -
Only valid for remove and copy. See the respective subcommands.
-n --dry-run -
Do not remove anything; just report the object names whose notes
would be removed.
-s <strategy> --strategy=<strategy> -
When merging notes, resolve notes conflicts using the given
strategy. The following strategies are recognized: manual
(default), ours, theirs, union and cat_sort_uniq.
This option overrides the notes.mergeStrategy configuration setting.
See the "NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES" section below for more
information on each notes merge strategy.
--commit -
Finalize an in-progress git notes merge. Use this option
when you have resolved the conflicts that git notes merge
stored in .git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE. This amends the partial
merge commit created by git notes merge (stored in
.git/NOTES_MERGE_PARTIAL) by adding the notes in
.git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE. The notes ref stored in the
.git/NOTES_MERGE_REF symref is updated to the resulting commit.
--abort -
Abort/reset an in-progress git notes merge, i.e. a notes merge
with conflicts. This simply removes all files related to the
notes merge.
-q --quiet -
When merging notes, operate quietly.
-v --verbose -
When merging notes, be more verbose.
When pruning notes, report all object names whose notes are
removed.
DISCUSSION
Commit notes are blobs containing extra information about an object
(usually information to supplement a commit’s message). These blobs
are taken from notes refs. A notes ref is usually a branch which
contains "files" whose paths are the object names for the objects
they describe, with some directory separators included for performance
reasons [1].
Every notes change creates a new commit at the specified notes ref.
You can therefore inspect the history of the notes by invoking, e.g.,
git log -p notes/commits. Currently the commit message only records
which operation triggered the update, and the commit authorship is
determined according to the usual rules (see git-commit[1]).
These details may change in the future.
It is also permitted for a notes ref to point directly to a tree
object, in which case the history of the notes can be read with
git log -p -g <refname>.
NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES
The default notes merge strategy is manual, which checks out
conflicting notes in a special work tree for resolving notes conflicts
(.git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE), and instructs the user to resolve the
conflicts in that work tree.
When done, the user can either finalize the merge with
git notes merge --commit, or abort the merge with
git notes merge --abort.
Users may select an automated merge strategy from among the following using
either -s/--strategy option or configuring notes.mergeStrategy accordingly:
ours automatically resolves conflicting notes in favor of the local
version (i.e. the current notes ref).
theirs automatically resolves notes conflicts in favor of the remote
version (i.e. the given notes ref being merged into the current notes
ref).
union automatically resolves notes conflicts by concatenating the
local and remote versions.
cat_sort_uniq is similar to union, but in addition to concatenating
the local and remote versions, this strategy also sorts the resulting
lines, and removes duplicate lines from the result. This is equivalent
to applying the "cat | sort | uniq" shell pipeline to the local and
remote versions. This strategy is useful if the notes follow a line-based
format where one wants to avoid duplicated lines in the merge result.
Note that if either the local or remote version contain duplicate lines
prior to the merge, these will also be removed by this notes merge
strategy.
EXAMPLES
You can use notes to add annotations with information that was not
available at the time a commit was written.
In principle, a note is a regular Git blob, and any kind of
(non-)format is accepted. You can binary-safely create notes from
arbitrary files using git hash-object:
$ cc *.c
$ blob=$(git hash-object -w a.out)
$ git notes --ref=built add --allow-empty -C "$blob" HEAD
(You cannot simply use git notes --ref=built add -F a.out HEAD
because that is not binary-safe.)
Of course, it doesn’t make much sense to display non-text-format notes
with git log, so if you use such notes, you’ll probably need to write
some special-purpose tools to do something useful with them.
CONFIGURATION
core.notesRef -
Notes ref to read and manipulate instead of
refs/notes/commits. Must be an unabbreviated ref name.
This setting can be overridden through the environment and
command line.
Everything above this line in this section isn’t included from the
git-config[1] documentation. The content that follows is the
same as what’s found there:
notes.mergeStrategy -
Which merge strategy to choose by default when resolving notes
conflicts. Must be one of manual, ours, theirs, union, or
cat_sort_uniq. Defaults to manual. See the "NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES"
section of git-notes[1] for more information on each strategy.
This setting can be overridden by passing the --strategy option to
git-notes[1].
notes.<name>.mergeStrategy -
Which merge strategy to choose when doing a notes merge into
refs/notes/<name>. This overrides the more general
notes.mergeStrategy. See the "NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES" section in
git-notes[1] for more information on the available strategies.
notes.displayRef -
Which ref (or refs, if a glob or specified more than once), in
addition to the default set by core.notesRef or
GIT_NOTES_REF, to read notes from when showing commit
messages with the git log family of commands.
This setting can be overridden with the GIT_NOTES_DISPLAY_REF
environment variable, which must be a colon separated list of refs or
globs.
A warning will be issued for refs that do not exist,
but a glob that does not match any refs is silently ignored.
This setting can be disabled by the --no-notes option to the git-log[1]
family of commands, or by the --notes=<ref> option accepted by
those commands.
The effective value of core.notesRef (possibly overridden by
GIT_NOTES_REF) is also implicitly added to the list of refs to be
displayed.
notes.rewrite.<command> -
When rewriting commits with <command> (currently amend or
rebase), if this variable is false, git will not copy
notes from the original to the rewritten commit. Defaults to
true. See also notes.rewriteRef below.
This setting can be overridden with the GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF
environment variable, which must be a colon separated list of refs or
globs.
notes.rewriteMode -
When copying notes during a rewrite (see the
notes.rewrite.<command> option), determines what to do if
the target commit already has a note. Must be one of
overwrite, concatenate, cat_sort_uniq, or ignore.
Defaults to concatenate.
This setting can be overridden with the GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_MODE
environment variable.
notes.rewriteRef -
When copying notes during a rewrite, specifies the (fully
qualified) ref whose notes should be copied. May be a glob,
in which case notes in all matching refs will be copied. You
may also specify this configuration several times.
Does not have a default value; you must configure this variable to
enable note rewriting. Set it to refs/notes/commits to enable
rewriting for the default commit notes.
Can be overridden with the GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF environment variable.
See notes.rewrite.<command> above for a further description of its format.
ENVIRONMENT
GIT_NOTES_REF -
Which ref to manipulate notes from, instead of refs/notes/commits.
This overrides the core.notesRef setting.
GIT_NOTES_DISPLAY_REF -
Colon-delimited list of refs or globs indicating which refs,
in addition to the default from core.notesRef or
GIT_NOTES_REF, to read notes from when showing commit
messages.
This overrides the notes.displayRef setting.
A warning will be issued for refs that do not exist, but a glob that
does not match any refs is silently ignored.
GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_MODE -
When copying notes during a rewrite, what to do if the target
commit already has a note.
Must be one of overwrite, concatenate, cat_sort_uniq, or ignore.
This overrides the core.rewriteMode setting.
GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF -
When rewriting commits, which notes to copy from the original
to the rewritten commit. Must be a colon-delimited list of
refs or globs.
If not set in the environment, the list of notes to copy depends
on the notes.rewrite.<command> and notes.rewriteRef settings.
1. Permitted pathnames have the form bf/fe/30/…/680d5a…: a sequence of directory names of two hexadecimal digits each followed by a filename with the rest of the object ID.
notes
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