GIT-ANNOTATE(1)

📦
version 2.56.0 · 25 versions
, in arch rolling

💅 GIT-ANNOTATE ✨

okay bestie, welcome to GIT-ANNOTATE(1), the Git Manual page you didn't know you needed. git-annotate, she's iconic, she's a little retro, and she's here to tell you exactly who wrote every single line of your file. let's get into it 🫶

🌸 NAME 🌸

git-annotate — annotate file lines with commit information. literally that's the whole gig, and she ate 💅

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

git annotate [<options>] [<rev-opts>] [<rev>] [--] <file>

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

So what she does is, she annotates each line in the given file with information from the commit which introduced the line. and yes, you can optionally annotate from a given revision, because we love options ✨

Now here's the tea: the only difference between this command and git-blame(1) is that they use slightly different output formats, and this command exists only for backward compatibility — to support existing scripts, and to provide a more familiar command name for people coming from other SCM systems. so she's basically the legacy queen keeping the old scripts alive, and honestly? respect 👑

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

  • -b — Show blank SHA-1 for boundary commits. This can also be controlled via the blame.blankBoundary config option. (blank on purpose, not a bug, don't come for her 💀)
  • --root — Do not treat root commits as boundaries. This can also be controlled via the blame.showRoot config option.
  • --show-stats — Include additional statistics at the end of blame output. stats girlies rise 🌈
  • -L <start>,<end>, -L :<funcname> — Annotate only the line range given by <start>,<end>, or by the function name regex <funcname>. May be specified multiple times. Overlapping ranges are allowed. ngl this one's a whole vibe, so let's break it down 👇

<start> and <end> are optional. -L <start> or -L <start>, spans from <start> to end of file. -L ,<end> spans from start of file to <end>.

<start> and <end> can take one of these forms:

  • <number> — If <start> or <end> is a number, it specifies an absolute line number (lines count from 1). yes bestie, from 1, not 0, we're not doing that today 🍓
  • /<regex>/ — This form will use the first line matching the given POSIX <regex>. If <start> is a regex, it will search from the end of the previous -L range, if any, otherwise from the start of file. If <start> is ^/<regex>/, it will search from the start of file. If <end> is a regex, it will search starting at the line given by <start>.
  • +<offset> or -<offset> — This is only valid for <end> and will specify a number of lines before or after the line given by <start>.

If :<funcname> is given in place of <start> and <end>, it is a regular expression that denotes the range from the first funcname line that matches <funcname>, up to the next funcname line. :<funcname> searches from the end of the previous -L range, if any, otherwise from the start of file. ^:<funcname> searches from the start of file. The function names are determined in the same way as git diff works out patch hunk headers (see Defining a custom hunk-header in gitattributes(5)).

  • -l — Show long rev (Default: off). short and sweet unless you ask otherwise 💜
  • -t — Show raw timestamp (Default: off).
  • -S <revs-file> — Use revisions from <revs-file> instead of calling git-rev-list(1).
  • --reverse <start>..<end> — Walk history forward instead of backward. Instead of showing the revision in which a line appeared, this shows the last revision in which a line has existed. This requires a range of revision like <start>..<end> where the path to blame exists in <start>. git blame --reverse <start> is taken as git blame --reverse <start>..HEAD for convenience. time travel but make it git 🦋
  • --first-parent — Follow only the first parent commit upon seeing a merge commit. This option can be used to determine when a line was introduced to a particular integration branch, rather than when it was introduced to the history overall. main character energy only, no side quests 👑
  • -p, --porcelain — Show in a format designed for machine consumption. robots need love too 🤖
  • --line-porcelain — Show the porcelain format, but output commit information for each line, not just the first time a commit is referenced. Implies --porcelain.
  • --incremental — Show the result incrementally in a format designed for machine consumption.
  • --encoding=<encoding> — Specify the encoding used to output author names and commit summaries. Setting it to none makes blame output unconverted data. For more information see the discussion about encoding in the git-log(1) manual page.
  • --contents <file> — Annotate using the contents from <file>, starting from <rev> if it is specified, and HEAD otherwise. You may specify - to make the command read from the standard input for the file contents. sneaky stdin moment 🙈
  • --date <format> — Specify the format used to output dates. If --date is not provided, the value of the blame.date config variable is used. If the blame.date config variable is also not set, the iso format is used. For supported values, see the discussion of the --date option at git-log(1).
  • --progress, --no-progress — Enable progress reporting on the standard error stream even if not attached to a terminal. By default, progress status is reported only when it is attached.
⚠️ You can't use --progress together with --porcelain or --incremental. pick a lane bestie 😭
  • -M[<num>] — Detect moved or copied lines within a file. When a commit moves or copies a block of lines (e.g. the original file has A and then B, and the commit changes it to B and then A), the traditional blame algorithm notices only half of the movement and typically blames the lines that were moved up (i.e. B) to the parent and assigns blame to the lines that were moved down (i.e. A) to the child commit. With this option, both groups of lines are blamed on the parent by running extra passes of inspection. she does extra passes, she's thorough 💅

<num> is optional, but it is the lower bound on the number of alphanumeric characters that Git must detect as moving/copying within a file for it to associate those lines with the parent commit. The default value is 20.

  • -C[<num>] — In addition to -M, detect lines moved or copied from other files that were modified in the same commit. This is useful when you reorganize your program and move code around across files. When this option is given twice, the command additionally looks for copies from other files in the commit that creates the file. When this option is given three times, the command additionally looks for copies from other files in any commit. stack it, queen 🧚

<num> is optional, but it is the lower bound on the number of alphanumeric characters that Git must detect as moving/copying between files for it to associate those lines with the parent commit. And the default value is 40. If there are more than one -C options given, the <num> argument of the last -C will take effect.

  • --ignore-rev <rev> — Ignore changes made by the revision when assigning blame, as if the change never happened. Lines that were changed or added by an ignored commit will be blamed on the previous commit that changed that line or nearby lines. This option may be specified multiple times to ignore more than one revision.

If the blame.markIgnoredLines config option is set, then lines that were changed by an ignored commit and attributed to another commit will be marked with a ? in the blame output. If the blame.markUnblamableLines config option is set, then those lines touched by an ignored commit that we could not attribute to another revision are marked with a *. In the porcelain modes, we print ignored and unblamable on a newline respectively. forget she ever existed 💀

  • --ignore-revs-file <file> — Ignore revisions listed in <file>, which must be in the same format as an fsck.skipList. This option may be repeated, and these files will be processed after any files specified with the blame.ignoreRevsFile config option. An empty file name, "", will clear the list of revs from previously processed files.
  • --color-lines — Color line annotations in the default format differently if they come from the same commit as the preceding line. This makes it easier to distinguish code blocks introduced by different commits. The color defaults to cyan and can be adjusted using the color.blame.repeatedLines config option. aesthetic AND functional 🌈
  • --color-by-age — Color line annotations depending on the age of the line in the default format. The color.blame.highlightRecent config option controls what color is used for each range of age. old lines get their own era, periodt 🎀
  • -h — Show help message. you're welcome bestie 🫶

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

git-blame(1) — her sister, her origin, her blueprint. iykyk ✨

💜 GIT 💜

Part of the git(1) suite. one big happy family 🧚

🌸 ok that's the whole page, no cap. this was Git 2.56.0, dated 2026-09-27 — so go annotate something and slay, bestie. GIT-ANNOTATE(1) out 💅💖✨

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