'\" t .\" Title: git-notes .\" Author: [FIXME: author] [see http://www.docbook.org/tdg5/en/html/author] .\" Generator: DocBook XSL Stylesheets vsnapshot .\" Date: 01/10/2025 .\" Manual: Git Manual .\" Source: Git 2.48.0 .\" Language: English .\" .TH "GIT\-NOTES" "1" "01/10/2025" "Git 2\&.48\&.0" "Git Manual" .\" ----------------------------------------------------------------- .\" * Define some portability stuff .\" ----------------------------------------------------------------- .\" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .\" http://bugs.debian.org/507673 .\" http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/groff/2009-02/msg00013.html .\" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .ie \n(.g .ds Aq \(aq .el .ds Aq ' .\" ----------------------------------------------------------------- .\" * set default formatting .\" ----------------------------------------------------------------- .\" disable hyphenation .nh .\" disable justification (adjust text to left margin only) .ad l .\" ----------------------------------------------------------------- .\" * MAIN CONTENT STARTS HERE * .\" ----------------------------------------------------------------- .SH "NAME" git-notes \- Add or inspect object notes .SH "SYNOPSIS" .sp .nf \fIgit notes\fR [list []] \fIgit notes\fR add [\-f] [\-\-allow\-empty] [\-\-[no\-]separator | \-\-separator=] [\-\-[no\-]stripspace] [\-F | \-m | (\-c | \-C) ] [\-e] [] \fIgit notes\fR copy [\-f] ( \-\-stdin | [] ) \fIgit notes\fR append [\-\-allow\-empty] [\-\-[no\-]separator | \-\-separator=] [\-\-[no\-]stripspace] [\-F | \-m | (\-c | \-C) ] [\-e] [] \fIgit notes\fR edit [\-\-allow\-empty] [] [\-\-[no\-]stripspace] \fIgit notes\fR show [] \fIgit notes\fR merge [\-v | \-q] [\-s ] \fIgit notes\fR merge \-\-commit [\-v | \-q] \fIgit notes\fR merge \-\-abort [\-v | \-q] \fIgit notes\fR remove [\-\-ignore\-missing] [\-\-stdin] [\&...] \fIgit notes\fR prune [\-n] [\-v] \fIgit notes\fR get\-ref .fi .sp .SH "DESCRIPTION" .sp Adds, removes, or reads notes attached to objects, without touching the objects themselves\&. .sp By default, notes are saved to and read from \fBrefs/notes/commits\fR, 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\&. .sp A typical use of notes is to supplement a commit message without changing the commit itself\&. Notes can be shown by \fIgit log\fR 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 ():" (or "Notes:" for \fBrefs/notes/commits\fR)\&. .sp Notes can also be added to patches prepared with \fBgit\fR \fBformat\-patch\fR by using the \fB\-\-notes\fR option\&. Such notes are added as a patch commentary after a three dash separator line\&. .sp To change which notes are shown by \fIgit log\fR, see the "notes\&.displayRef" discussion in the section called \(lqCONFIGURATION\(rq\&. .sp See the "notes\&.rewrite\&." configuration for a way to carry notes across commands that rewrite commits\&. .SH "SUBCOMMANDS" .PP list .RS 4 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 " ")\&. This is the default subcommand if no subcommand is given\&. .RE .PP add .RS 4 Add notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD)\&. Abort if the object already has notes (use \fB\-f\fR to overwrite existing notes)\&. However, if you\(cqre using \fBadd\fR interactively (using an editor to supply the notes contents), then \- instead of aborting \- the existing notes will be opened in the editor (like the \fBedit\fR subcommand)\&. If you specify multiple \fB\-m\fR and \fB\-F\fR, a blank line will be inserted between the messages\&. Use the \fB\-\-separator\fR option to insert other delimiters\&. You can use \fB\-e\fR to edit and fine\-tune the message(s) supplied from \fB\-m\fR and \fB\-F\fR options interactively (using an editor) before adding the note\&. .RE .PP copy .RS 4 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: \fBgit\fR \fBnotes\fR \fBadd\fR [\fB\-f\fR] \fB\-C\fR \fB$\fR(\fBgit\fR \fBnotes\fR \fBlist\fR \fI\fR) \fI\fR .sp In \fB\-\-stdin\fR mode, take lines in the format .sp .if n \{\ .RS 4 .\} .nf SP [ SP ] LF .fi .if n \{\ .RE .\} .sp on standard input, and copy the notes from each to its corresponding \&. (The optional \fI\fR is ignored so that the command can read the input given to the \fBpost\-rewrite\fR hook\&.) .RE .PP append .RS 4 Append new message(s) given by \fB\-m\fR or \fB\-F\fR 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 \fB\-\-separator\fR option\&. Edit the notes to be appended given by \fB\-m\fR and \fB\-F\fR options with \fB\-e\fR interactively (using an editor) before appending the note\&. .RE .PP edit .RS 4 Edit the notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD)\&. .RE .PP show .RS 4 Show the notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD)\&. .RE .PP merge .RS 4 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")\&. .sp 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 (\fB\&.git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE\fR), and instructs the user to manually resolve the conflicts there\&. When done, the user can either finalize the merge with \fIgit notes merge \-\-commit\fR, or abort the merge with \fIgit notes merge \-\-abort\fR\&. .RE .PP remove .RS 4 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 \fBedit\fR subcommand\&. .RE .PP prune .RS 4 Remove all notes for non\-existing/unreachable objects\&. .RE .PP get\-ref .RS 4 Print the current notes ref\&. This provides an easy way to retrieve the current notes ref (e\&.g\&. from scripts)\&. .RE .SH "OPTIONS" .PP \-f, \-\-force .RS 4 When adding notes to an object that already has notes, overwrite the existing notes (instead of aborting)\&. .RE .PP \-m , \-\-message= .RS 4 Use the given note message (instead of prompting)\&. If multiple \fB\-m\fR 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\&. If you wish to keep them verbatim, use \fB\-\-no\-stripspace\fR\&. .RE .PP \-F , \-\-file= .RS 4 Take the note message from the given file\&. Use \fI\-\fR 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\&. If you wish to keep them verbatim, use \fB\-\-no\-stripspace\fR\&. .RE .PP \-C , \-\-reuse\-message= .RS 4 Take the given blob object (for example, another note) as the note message\&. (Use \fBgit\fR \fBnotes\fR \fBcopy\fR \fI\fR instead to copy notes between objects\&.)\&. By default, message will be copied verbatim, but if you wish to strip out the lines starting with # and empty lines other than a single line between paragraphs, use with`\-\-stripspace` option\&. .RE .PP \-c , \-\-reedit\-message= .RS 4 Like \fI\-C\fR, but with \fB\-c\fR the editor is invoked, so that the user can further edit the note message\&. .RE .PP \-\-allow\-empty .RS 4 Allow an empty note object to be stored\&. The default behavior is to automatically remove empty notes\&. .RE .PP \-\-[no\-]separator, \-\-separator= .RS 4 Specify a string used as a custom inter\-paragraph separator (a newline is added at the end as needed)\&. If \fB\-\-no\-separator\fR, no separators will be added between paragraphs\&. Defaults to a blank line\&. .RE .PP \-\-[no\-]stripspace .RS 4 Strip leading and trailing whitespace from the note message\&. Also strip out empty lines other than a single line between paragraphs\&. Lines starting with # will be stripped out in non\-editor cases like \fB\-m\fR, \fB\-F\fR and \fB\-C\fR, but not in editor case like \fBgit\fR \fBnotes\fR \fBedit\fR, \fB\-c\fR, etc\&. .RE .PP \-\-ref .RS 4 Manipulate the notes tree in \&. This overrides \fBGIT_NOTES_REF\fR and the "core\&.notesRef" configuration\&. The ref specifies the full refname when it begins with \fBrefs/notes/\fR; when it begins with \fBnotes/\fR, \fBrefs/\fR and otherwise \fBrefs/notes/\fR is prefixed to form a full name of the ref\&. .RE .PP \-\-ignore\-missing .RS 4 Do not consider it an error to request removing notes from an object that does not have notes attached to it\&. .RE .PP \-\-stdin .RS 4 Also read the object names to remove notes from the standard input (there is no reason you cannot combine this with object names from the command line)\&. .RE .PP \-n, \-\-dry\-run .RS 4 Do not remove anything; just report the object names whose notes would be removed\&. .RE .PP \-s , \-\-strategy= .RS 4 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\&. .RE .PP \-\-commit .RS 4 Finalize an in\-progress \fIgit notes merge\fR\&. Use this option when you have resolved the conflicts that \fIgit notes merge\fR stored in \&.git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE\&. This amends the partial merge commit created by \fIgit notes merge\fR (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\&. .RE .PP \-\-abort .RS 4 Abort/reset an in\-progress \fIgit notes merge\fR, i\&.e\&. a notes merge with conflicts\&. This simply removes all files related to the notes merge\&. .RE .PP \-q, \-\-quiet .RS 4 When merging notes, operate quietly\&. .RE .PP \-v, \-\-verbose .RS 4 When merging notes, be more verbose\&. When pruning notes, report all object names whose notes are removed\&. .RE .SH "DISCUSSION" .sp Commit notes are blobs containing extra information about an object (usually information to supplement a commit\(cqs 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 \&\s-2\u[1]\d\s+2\&. .sp 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\&., \fBgit\fR \fBlog\fR \fB\-p\fR \fBnotes/commits\fR\&. Currently the commit message only records which operation triggered the update, and the commit authorship is determined according to the usual rules (see \fBgit-commit\fR(1))\&. These details may change in the future\&. .sp 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 \fBgit\fR \fBlog\fR \fB\-p\fR \fB\-g\fR \fI\fR\&. .SH "NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES" .sp The default notes merge strategy is "manual", which checks out conflicting notes in a special work tree for resolving notes conflicts (\fB\&.git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE\fR), and instructs the user to resolve the conflicts in that work tree\&. When done, the user can either finalize the merge with \fIgit notes merge \-\-commit\fR, or abort the merge with \fIgit notes merge \-\-abort\fR\&. .sp Users may select an automated merge strategy from among the following using either \-s/\-\-strategy option or configuring notes\&.mergeStrategy accordingly: .sp "ours" automatically resolves conflicting notes in favor of the local version (i\&.e\&. the current notes ref)\&. .sp "theirs" automatically resolves notes conflicts in favor of the remote version (i\&.e\&. the given notes ref being merged into the current notes ref)\&. .sp "union" automatically resolves notes conflicts by concatenating the local and remote versions\&. .sp "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\&. .SH "EXAMPLES" .sp You can use notes to add annotations with information that was not available at the time a commit was written\&. .sp .if n \{\ .RS 4 .\} .nf $ git notes add \-m \*(AqTested\-by: Johannes Sixt \*(Aq 72a144e2 $ git show \-s 72a144e [\&.\&.\&.] Signed\-off\-by: Junio C Hamano Notes: Tested\-by: Johannes Sixt .fi .if n \{\ .RE .\} .sp .sp 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 \fIgit hash\-object\fR: .sp .if n \{\ .RS 4 .\} .nf $ cc *\&.c $ blob=$(git hash\-object \-w a\&.out) $ git notes \-\-ref=built add \-\-allow\-empty \-C "$blob" HEAD .fi .if n \{\ .RE .\} .sp .sp (You cannot simply use \fBgit\fR \fBnotes\fR \fB\-\-ref=built\fR \fBadd\fR \fB\-F\fR \fBa\&.out\fR \fBHEAD\fR because that is not binary\-safe\&.) Of course, it doesn\(cqt make much sense to display non\-text\-format notes with \fIgit log\fR, so if you use such notes, you\(cqll probably need to write some special\-purpose tools to do something useful with them\&. .SH "CONFIGURATION" .PP core\&.notesRef .RS 4 Notes ref to read and manipulate instead of \fBrefs/notes/commits\fR\&. Must be an unabbreviated ref name\&. This setting can be overridden through the environment and command line\&. .RE .sp Everything above this line in this section isn\(cqt included from the \fBgit-config\fR(1) documentation\&. The content that follows is the same as what\(cqs found there: .PP notes\&.mergeStrategy .RS 4 Which merge strategy to choose by default when resolving notes conflicts\&. Must be one of \fBmanual\fR, \fBours\fR, \fBtheirs\fR, \fBunion\fR, or \fBcat_sort_uniq\fR\&. Defaults to \fBmanual\fR\&. See the "NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES" section of \fBgit-notes\fR(1) for more information on each strategy\&. .sp This setting can be overridden by passing the \fB\-\-strategy\fR option to \fBgit-notes\fR(1)\&. .RE .PP notes\&.\&.mergeStrategy .RS 4 Which merge strategy to choose when doing a notes merge into refs/notes/\&. This overrides the more general "notes\&.mergeStrategy"\&. See the "NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES" section in \fBgit-notes\fR(1) for more information on the available strategies\&. .RE .PP notes\&.displayRef .RS 4 Which ref (or refs, if a glob or specified more than once), in addition to the default set by \fBcore\&.notesRef\fR or \fBGIT_NOTES_REF\fR, to read notes from when showing commit messages with the \fIgit log\fR family of commands\&. .sp This setting can be overridden with the \fBGIT_NOTES_DISPLAY_REF\fR environment variable, which must be a colon separated list of refs or globs\&. .sp A warning will be issued for refs that do not exist, but a glob that does not match any refs is silently ignored\&. .sp This setting can be disabled by the \fB\-\-no\-notes\fR option to the \fIgit log\fR family of commands, or by the \fB\-\-notes=\fR\fI\fR option accepted by those commands\&. .sp The effective value of "core\&.notesRef" (possibly overridden by GIT_NOTES_REF) is also implicitly added to the list of refs to be displayed\&. .RE .PP notes\&.rewrite\&. .RS 4 When rewriting commits with (currently \fBamend\fR or \fBrebase\fR), if this variable is \fBfalse\fR, git will not copy notes from the original to the rewritten commit\&. Defaults to \fBtrue\fR\&. See also "\fBnotes\&.rewriteRef\fR" below\&. .sp This setting can be overridden with the \fBGIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF\fR environment variable, which must be a colon separated list of refs or globs\&. .RE .PP notes\&.rewriteMode .RS 4 When copying notes during a rewrite (see the "notes\&.rewrite\&." option), determines what to do if the target commit already has a note\&. Must be one of \fBoverwrite\fR, \fBconcatenate\fR, \fBcat_sort_uniq\fR, or \fBignore\fR\&. Defaults to \fBconcatenate\fR\&. .sp This setting can be overridden with the \fBGIT_NOTES_REWRITE_MODE\fR environment variable\&. .RE .PP notes\&.rewriteRef .RS 4 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\&. .sp Does not have a default value; you must configure this variable to enable note rewriting\&. Set it to \fBrefs/notes/commits\fR to enable rewriting for the default commit notes\&. .sp Can be overridden with the \fBGIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF\fR environment variable\&. See \fBnotes\&.rewrite\&.\fR\fI\fR above for a further description of its format\&. .RE .SH "ENVIRONMENT" .PP \fBGIT_NOTES_REF\fR .RS 4 Which ref to manipulate notes from, instead of \fBrefs/notes/commits\fR\&. This overrides the \fBcore\&.notesRef\fR setting\&. .RE .PP \fBGIT_NOTES_DISPLAY_REF\fR .RS 4 Colon\-delimited list of refs or globs indicating which refs, in addition to the default from \fBcore\&.notesRef\fR or \fBGIT_NOTES_REF\fR, to read notes from when showing commit messages\&. This overrides the \fBnotes\&.displayRef\fR setting\&. .sp A warning will be issued for refs that do not exist, but a glob that does not match any refs is silently ignored\&. .RE .PP \fBGIT_NOTES_REWRITE_MODE\fR .RS 4 When copying notes during a rewrite, what to do if the target commit already has a note\&. Must be one of \fBoverwrite\fR, \fBconcatenate\fR, \fBcat_sort_uniq\fR, or \fBignore\fR\&. This overrides the \fBcore\&.rewriteMode\fR setting\&. .RE .PP \fBGIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF\fR .RS 4 When rewriting commits, which notes to copy from the original to the rewritten commit\&. Must be a colon\-delimited list of refs or globs\&. .sp If not set in the environment, the list of notes to copy depends on the \fBnotes\&.rewrite\&.\fR\fI\fR and \fBnotes\&.rewriteRef\fR settings\&. .RE .SH "GIT" .sp Part of the \fBgit\fR(1) suite .SH "NOTES" .IP " 1." 4 Permitted pathnames have the form \fIbf\fR\fB/\fR\fIfe\fR\fB/\fR\fI30\fR\fB/\fR\fI\&...\fR\fB/\fR\fI680d5a\&...\fR: a sequence of directory names of two hexadecimal digits each followed by a filename with the rest of the object ID.