SYNOPSIS
git notes [list [<object>]] git notes add [-f] [--allow-empty] [-F <file> | -m <msg> | (-c | -C) <object>] [<object>] git notes copy [-f] ( --stdin | <from-object> <to-object> ) git notes append [--allow-empty] [-F <file> | -m <msg> | (-c | -C) <object>] [<object>] git notes edit [--allow-empty] [<object>] 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" configuration in git-log(1).
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 usingadd
interactively (using an editor to supply the notes contents), then - instead of aborting - the existing notes will be opened in the editor (like theedit
subcommand). - copy
-
Copy the notes for the first object onto the second object. 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 thepost-rewrite
hook.) - append
-
Append to the notes of an existing object (defaults to HEAD). Creates a new notes object if needed.
- 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. - 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. Lines starting with#
and empty lines other than a single line between paragraphs will be stripped out. - -F <file>
- --file=<file>
-
Take the note message from the given file. Use - to read the note message from the standard input. Lines starting with
#
and empty lines other than a single line between paragraphs will be stripped out. - -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.) - -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.
- --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 withnotes/
,refs/
and otherwiserefs/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
-
Also read the object names to remove notes from from the standard input (there is no reason you cannot combine this with object names from the command line).
- -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 a 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
[Permitted pathnames have the form
ab/
cd/
ef/
…/
abcdef…: a sequence of directory
names of two hexadecimal digits each followed by a filename with the
rest of the object ID.]
.
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.
$ git notes add -m 'Tested-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>' 72a144e2
$ git show -s 72a144e
[...]
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Notes:
Tested-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>
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. - notes.mergeStrategy
-
Which merge strategy to choose by default when resolving notes conflicts. Must be one of
manual
,ours
,theirs
,union
, orcat_sort_uniq
. Defaults tomanual
. See "NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES" section above for more information on each strategy.This setting can be overridden by passing the
--strategy
option. - 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 above for more information on each available strategy.
- 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 on the command line or by the GIT_NOTES_DISPLAY_REF environment variable. See git-log(1). - notes.rewrite.<command>
-
When rewriting commits with <command> (currently
amend
orrebase
), if this variable isfalse
, git will not copy notes from the original to the rewritten commit. Defaults totrue
. See also "notes.rewriteRef
" below.This setting can be overridden by the GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF environment variable.
- notes.rewriteMode
-
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
, orignore
. Defaults toconcatenate
.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.
Can be overridden with the GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF environment variable.
ENVIRONMENT
- GIT_NOTES_REF
-
Which ref to manipulate notes from, instead of
refs/notes/commits
. This overrides thecore.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 thenotes.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
, orignore
. This overrides thecore.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>
andnotes.rewriteRef
settings.
GIT
Part of the git(7) suite