GIT-MERGE(1) Git Manual GIT-MERGE(1) NAME git-merge - Join two or more development histories together SYNOPSIS git merge [-n] [--stat] [--no-commit] [--squash] [--[no-]edit] [--no-verify] [-s ] [-X ] [-S[]] [--[no-]allow-unrelated-histories] [--[no-]rerere-autoupdate] [-m ] [-F ] [--into-name ] [...] git merge (--continue | --abort | --quit) DESCRIPTION Incorporates changes from the named commits (since the time their histories diverged from the current branch) into the current branch. This command is used by git pull to incorporate changes from another repository and can be used by hand to merge changes from one branch into another. Assume the following history exists and the current branch is master: A---B---C topic / D---E---F---G master Then git merge topic will replay the changes made on the topic branch since it diverged from master (i.e., E) until its current commit (C) on top of master, and record the result in a new commit along with the names of the two parent commits and a log message from the user describing the changes. Before the operation, ORIG_HEAD is set to the tip of the current branch (C). A---B---C topic / \ D---E---F---G---H master A merge stops if there's a conflict that cannot be resolved automatically or if --no-commit was provided when initiating the merge. At that point you can run git merge --abort or git merge --continue. git merge --abort will abort the merge process and try to reconstruct the pre-merge state. However, if there were uncommitted changes when the merge started (and especially if those changes were further modified after the merge was started), git merge --abort will in some cases be unable to reconstruct the original (pre-merge) changes. Therefore: Warning: Running git merge with non-trivial uncommitted changes is discouraged: while possible, it may leave you in a state that is hard to back out of in the case of a conflict. OPTIONS --commit, --no-commit Perform the merge and commit the result. This option can be used to override --no-commit. With --no-commit perform the merge and stop just before creating a merge commit, to give the user a chance to inspect and further tweak the merge result before committing. Note that fast-forward updates do not create a merge commit and therefore there is no way to stop those merges with --no-commit. Thus, if you want to ensure your branch is not changed or updated by the merge command, use --no-ff with --no-commit. --edit, -e, --no-edit Invoke an editor before committing successful mechanical merge to further edit the auto-generated merge message, so that the user can explain and justify the merge. The --no-edit option can be used to accept the auto-generated message (this is generally discouraged). The --edit (or -e) option is still useful if you are giving a draft message with the -m option from the command line and want to edit it in the editor. Older scripts may depend on the historical behaviour of not allowing the user to edit the merge log message. They will see an editor opened when they run git merge. To make it easier to adjust such scripts to the updated behaviour, the environment variable GIT_MERGE_AUTOEDIT can be set to no at the beginning of them. --cleanup= This option determines how the merge message will be cleaned up before committing. See git-commit(1) for more details. In addition, if the is given a value of scissors, scissors will be appended to MERGE_MSG before being passed on to the commit machinery in the case of a merge conflict. --ff, --no-ff, --ff-only Specifies how a merge is handled when the merged-in history is already a descendant of the current history. --ff is the default unless merging an annotated (and possibly signed) tag that is not stored in its natural place in the refs/tags/ hierarchy, in which case --no-ff is assumed. With --ff, when possible resolve the merge as a fast-forward (only update the branch pointer to match the merged branch; do not create a merge commit). When not possible (when the merged-in history is not a descendant of the current history), create a merge commit. With --no-ff, create a merge commit in all cases, even when the merge could instead be resolved as a fast-forward. With --ff-only, resolve the merge as a fast-forward when possible. When not possible, refuse to merge and exit with a non-zero status. -S[], --gpg-sign[=], --no-gpg-sign GPG-sign the resulting merge commit. The keyid argument is optional and defaults to the committer identity; if specified, it must be stuck to the option without a space. --no-gpg-sign is useful to countermand both commit.gpgSign configuration variable, and earlier --gpg-sign. --log[=], --no-log In addition to branch names, populate the log message with one-line descriptions from at most actual commits that are being merged. See also git-fmt-merge-msg(1). With --no-log do not list one-line descriptions from the actual commits being merged. --signoff, --no-signoff Add a Signed-off-by trailer by the committer at the end of the commit log message. The meaning of a signoff depends on the project to which you're committing. For example, it may certify that the committer has the rights to submit the work under the project's license or agrees to some contributor representation, such as a Developer Certificate of Origin. (See https://developercertificate.org for the one used by the Linux kernel and Git projects.) Consult the documentation or leadership of the project to which you're contributing to understand how the signoffs are used in that project. The --no-signoff option can be used to countermand an earlier --signoff option on the command line. --stat, -n, --no-stat Show a diffstat at the end of the merge. The diffstat is also controlled by the configuration option merge.stat. With -n or --no-stat do not show a diffstat at the end of the merge. --squash, --no-squash Produce the working tree and index state as if a real merge happened (except for the merge information), but do not actually make a commit, move the HEAD, or record $GIT_DIR/MERGE_HEAD (to cause the next git commit command to create a merge commit). This allows you to create a single commit on top of the current branch whose effect is the same as merging another branch (or more in case of an octopus). With --no-squash perform the merge and commit the result. This option can be used to override --squash. With --squash, --commit is not allowed, and will fail. --[no-]verify By default, the pre-merge and commit-msg hooks are run. When --no-verify is given, these are bypassed. See also githooks(5). -s , --strategy= Use the given merge strategy; can be supplied more than once to specify them in the order they should be tried. If there is no -s option, a built-in list of strategies is used instead (ort when merging a single head, octopus otherwise). -X