GH-SEARCH-COMMITS(1)

💅 gh-search-commits — bestie's guide to stalking commits ✨

okay so this is gh-search-commits(1), part of the GitHub CLI manual, and it's literally the tool you use to search for commits on GitHub. yes. commits. the little history blobs. we're going digging 🎀

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

gh search commits [<query>] [flags]

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So like — this command searches for commits on GitHub. That's it, that's the whole vibe. 💖

But here's the thing: you can build your search query in three different ways, and you can also mix 'em together because we're flexible like that:

• using the GitHub search syntax directly in your query
• using the parameter and qualifier flags (the long list of options below, bestie)
• or a combination of the two ✨

The GitHub search syntax is documented over at:

https://docs.github.com/search-github/searching-on-github/searching-commits

And if you're out here trying to handle search queries containing a hyphen and it's giving you grief, just run gh search --help — there's more info in there iykyk 🫶

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👑 OPTIONS 👑

• --author <string> — filter by author 💅
• --author-date <date> — filter based on authored date
• --author-email <string> — filter on author email
• --author-name <string> — filter on author name
• --committer <string> — filter by committer
• --committer-date <date> — filter based on committed date
• --committer-email <string> — filter on committer email
• --committer-name <string> — filter on committer name
• --hash <string> — filter by commit hash
• -q, --jq <expression> — filter JSON output using a jq expression
• --json <fields> — output JSON with the specified fields
• -L, --limit <int> (default 30) — maximum number of commits to fetch
• --merge — filter on merge commits
• --order <string> (default "desc") — order of commits returned, ignored unless '--sort' flag is specified: {asc|desc}
• --owner <strings> — filter on repository owner
• --parent <string> — filter by parent hash
• -R, --repo <OWNER/REPO> — filter on repository, in OWNER/REPO format
• --sort <string> (default "best-match") — sort fetched commits: {author-date|committer-date}
• -t, --template <string> — format JSON output using a Go template; see "gh help formatting"
• --tree <string> — filter by tree hash
• --visibility <strings> — filter based on repository visibility: {public|private|internal}
• -w, --web — open the search query in the web browser

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🌈 JSON FIELDS 🌈

so if you're doing the whole --json thing, these are the fields you can ask for, no cap:

author, commit, committer, id, parents, repository, sha, url

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💀 EXIT CODES 💀

like, what did the command even do? here's the vibe check:

• 0: successful execution ✅
• 1: error 😭
• 2: command canceled 🙈
• 4: authentication required 🔐

NOTE: specific commands may have additional exit codes. refer to the command's help for more information, bestie 🫶

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🍓 EXAMPLE 🍓

okay these are the ones you're gonna actually use, so pay attention:

# Search commits matching set of keywords "readme" and "typo"
$ gh search commits readme typo

# Search commits matching phrase "bug fix"
$ gh search commits "bug fix"

# Search commits using raw search qualifiers as separate arguments
$ gh search commits fix author:monalisa merge:false

# Search commits committed by user "monalisa"
$ gh search commits --committer=monalisa

# Search commits authored by users with name "Jane Doe"
$ gh search commits --author-name="Jane Doe"

# Search commits matching hash "8dd03144ffdc6c0d486d6b705f9c7fba871ee7c3"
$ gh search commits --hash=8dd03144ffdc6c0d486d6b705f9c7fba871ee7c3

# Search commits authored before February 1st, 2022
$ gh search commits --author-date="<2022-02-01"

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🧚 SEE ALSO 🧚

• gh-search(1) — the sibling, go say hi 💜

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that's the whole page, bestie. mwah. this was GitHub CLI v2.102.0, dated Oct 2026, and you can find it under the GH-SEARCH-COMMITS(1) name whenever you need it again. slay 💅✨