GIT-REPLAY(1)
✨ GIT-REPLAY — git manual, but make it make sense ✨
okay bestie, so this is the git-replay page from the Git manual. Buckle up, she's long, she's experimental, and she has opinions. 💅
🌸 NAME
git-replay — EXPERIMENTAL: replay commits on a new base, and yes she works with bare repos too 🫶
🎀 SYNOPSIS
(EXPERIMENTAL!) git replay ([--contained] --onto=<newbase> | --advance=<branch> | --revert=<branch>)
[--ref=<ref>] [--ref-action=<mode>] [--linearize] <revision-range>🦋 DESCRIPTION
So what she does is: take a range of commits, replay them onto a new location. That's the whole vibe.
Huge thing to know: she leaves your working tree and your index completely untouched. Like, not a single hair out of place. 💅 What she does touch, by default, is the relevant references — and she updates them using an atomic transaction, meaning all refs update or none do. Iconic, no partial mess.
Want her to keep her hands off the refs entirely? Use --ref-action=print — then instead of updating anything automatically, she just hands you the update commands so you can pipe them to git update-ref --stdin (peep the OUTPUT section below 👀).
⚠️ THIS COMMAND IS EXPERIMENTAL. THE BEHAVIOR MAY CHANGE. fr fr, don't @ me when it shifts under you.
💖 OPTIONS
--onto=<newbase>— the starting point where the new commits get created. Can be any valid commit, not just some existing branch name, she's flexible like that ✨
When --onto is specified, the branch(es) in the revision range get updated to point at the new commits — kinda like how git rebase --update-refs updates multiple branches in the affected range. Same energy.
--advance=<branch>— also a starting point for the new commits, but this one must be a branch name (no random commits, she said what she said).
The history gets replayed on top of <branch>, and then <branch> itself is updated to point at the tip of the resulting history. This is the whole difference from --onto — --onto uses the target only as a starting point and does not update it. --advance updates. Very demure, very different. 🎀
--revert=<branch>— starting point for the reverted commits; must be a branch name.
When --revert is specified, the commits in the revision range get reverted (aka their changes get undone) and the reverted commits are created on top of <branch>. Then <branch> is updated to point at the new commits.
It's the same as running git revert <revision-range>, except it does not update the working tree. No touching, no messing. 🫶
The commit messages follow git revert conventions: they're prefixed with "Revert" and include "This reverts commit <hash>." And plot twist — when you're reverting a commit whose message starts with "Revert", the new message uses "Reapply" instead. Cute. Unlike cherry-pick, which preserves the original author, revert commits use the current user as the author — matching the behavior of git revert.
This option is mutually exclusive with --onto and --advance. It's also incompatible with --contained (because --contained is a modifier for --onto only, and she's not a modifier for everything, okay?). 😭
--contained— update all branches that point at commits in<revision-range>. Requires--onto. That's it, that's the rule. 💀--ref=<ref>— override which reference gets updated with the result of the replay. The ref must be fully qualified (no shortcuts bestie, she needs the whole path).
When used with --onto, the <revision-range> should have a single tip, and only the specified reference is updated instead of inferring refs from the revision range. When used with --advance or --revert, the specified reference is updated instead of the branch you gave to those options. This option is incompatible with --contained.
--ref-action[=<mode>]— controls how references get updated. The mode can be:update— (default) update refs directly using an atomic transaction. All refs are updated or none are. All-or-nothing behavior, periodt. 👑print— outputupdate-refcommands for pipeline use. This is the traditional behavior where output can be piped togit update-ref --stdin.
The default mode can be configured via the replay.refAction configuration variable. ✨
--linearize— in this mode, each replayed commit gets stacked on top of the previously replayed one, so all the replayed commits get flattened into a single linear history. A whole stack, one line. 🌈
When a merge commit is encountered, all commits in the range reachable from the merge commit are replayed into the linear history, and the merge commit itself is dropped. A ref that pointed to a merge commit gets updated to the merge's last replayed ancestor. (This matches the behavior of git-rebase(1)'s --no-rebase-merges option — iykyk.)
--linearize cannot be combined with multiple branches or with --contained. Want to linearize several branches? Replay them in separate git replay invocations. One at a time, she's not doing group projects. 🙈
<revision-range>— the range of commits to replay; see "Specifying Ranges" ingit-rev-parse(1).
In --advance=<branch> or --revert=<branch> mode, the range should have a single tip, so it's actually clear which tip the advanced or reverted <branch> should point to. (Makes sense, she needs to know where to aim. 🎯)
Any commits in the range whose changes are already present in the branch the commits are being replayed onto will be dropped. Already been there, already done that, she's not re-doing it. 💅
🔥 Commit Limiting
Besides specifying a range of commits that should be listed using the special notations explained in the description, you can apply additional commit limiting. Extra filters, extra power. ⭐
Using more options generally further limits the output — e.g. --since=<date1> limits to commits newer than <date1>, and using it with --grep=<pattern> further limits to commits whose log message has a line that matches <pattern> — unless otherwise noted. Stack 'em up. 🎀
Note bestie: these are applied before commit ordering and formatting options, such as --reverse. Order matters, always has. 💜
-<number>,-n <number>,--max-count=<number>— limit the output to the first<number>commits that would be shown.--max-count-oldest=<number>— limit the output to the last<number>commits that would be shown. (From the other end, she's ambidextrous. ✨)--skip=<number>— skip<number>commits before starting to show the commit output.--since=<date>,--after=<date>— show commits more recent than<date>. Special case:todaymeans the last midnight. 🌙--since-as-filter=<date>— show all commits more recent than<date>. This visits all commits in the range, rather than stopping at the first commit which is older than<date>. Different vibe from--since, she actually walks the whole thing.--until=<date>,--before=<date>— show commits older than<date>.--author=<pattern>,--committer=<pattern>— limit the commits output to ones with author/committer header lines that match the<pattern>regular expression. With more than one--author=<pattern>, commits whose author matches any of the<pattern>are chosen (similarly for multiple--committer=<pattern>). Any-match energy. 🦋--grep-reflog=<pattern>— limit the commits output to ones with reflog entries that match the<pattern>regular expression. With more than one--grep-reflog, commits whose reflog message matches any of the given patterns are chosen.
🚨 It is an error to use this option unless --walk-reflogs is in use. Read the room, bestie.
--grep=<pattern>— limit the commits output to ones with a log message that matches the<pattern>regular expression. With more than one--grep=<pattern>, commits whose message matches any of the<pattern>are chosen (but see--all-match, she can be stricter 👀).
When --notes is in effect, the message from the notes is matched as if it were part of the log message. Notes count too, they're part of the family. 💖
--all-match— limit the commits output to ones that match all given--grep, instead of ones that match at least one. No "close enough" here, she wants every box checked. 💅--invert-grep— limit the commits output to ones with a log message that do not match the<pattern>specified with--grep=<pattern>. Flip it and reverse it. 🙃-i,--regexp-ignore-case— match the regular expression limiting patterns without regard to letter case. CaSe WhO? Never heard of her. 💀--basic-regexp— consider the limiting patterns to be basic regular expressions; this is the default. She's basic like that (affectionate). 🎀-E,--extended-regexp— consider the limiting patterns to be extended regular expressions instead of the default basic regular expressions. Upgrade era. ✨-F,--fixed-strings— consider the limiting patterns to be fixed strings (don't interpret pattern as a regular expression). What you see is what you get, no regex gymnastics. ⭐-P,--perl-regexp— consider the limiting patterns to be Perl-compatible regular expressions.
⚠️ Support for these types of regular expressions is an optional compile-time dependency. If Git wasn't compiled with support for them, providing this option will cause it to die. 😭 Not a vibe, but forewarned is forearmed.
--remove-empty— stop when a given path disappears from the tree.--merges— print only merge commits. This is exactly the same as--min-parents=2. Exactly. Same thing. 💯--no-merges— do not print commits with more than one parent. This is exactly the same as--max-parents=1. Also exactly.--min-parents=<number>,--max-parents=<number>,--no-min-parents,--no-max-parents— show only commits which have at least (or at most) that many parent commits. In particular:--max-parents=1is the same as--no-merges--min-parents=2is the same as--merges--max-parents=0gives all root commits 🌱--min-parents=3gives all octopus merges 🐙
--no-min-parents and --no-max-parents reset these limits (to no limit) again. Equivalent forms are --min-parents=0 (any commit has 0 or more parents) and --max-parents=-1 (negative numbers denote no upper limit). Math is mathing. 🔥
--first-parent— when finding commits to include, follow only the first parent commit upon seeing a merge commit.
This option can give a better overview when viewing the evolution of a particular topic branch, because merges into a topic branch tend to be only about adjusting to updated upstream from time to time, and this option lets you ignore the individual commits brought into your history by such a merge. Cleaner view, less noise. 🧚
--exclude-first-parent-only— when finding commits to exclude (with a^), follow only the first parent commit upon seeing a merge commit.
This can be used to find the set of changes in a topic branch from the point where it diverged from the remote branch, given that arbitrary merges can be valid topic branch changes. Chef's kiss use case. 👑
--maximal-only— restrict the output commits to be those that are not reachable from any other commits in the revision range. Only the maximal ones survive. 💅--not— reverses the meaning of the^prefix (or lack thereof) for all following revision specifiers, up to the next--not.
When used on the command line before --stdin, the revisions passed through stdin will not be affected by it. Conversely, when passed via standard input, the revisions passed on the command line will not be affected by it. Sneaky little scoping thing, pay attention. 🙈
--all— pretend as if all the refs inrefs/, along withHEAD, are listed on the command line as<commit>. Everything, everywhere, all at once. 🌈--branches[=<pattern>]— pretend as if all the refs inrefs/headsare listed on the command line as<commit>. If<pattern>is given, limit branches to ones matching the given shell glob. If<pattern>lacks?,*, or[,/*at the end is implied. 🎀
(more of this page is coming, bestie — hold tight 💖)
--tags[=<pattern>]— okay so this is you pretending every single ref inrefs/tagsgot typed on the command line as a<commit>. If you pass a<pattern>, it limits tags to the ones matching that shell glob. And if your pattern is missing?,*, or[, then/*at the end is implied. Cute, right? 💅--remotes[=<pattern>]— same energy, but forrefs/remotes: pretend all of those are on the command line as<commit>. With a<pattern>, it limits remote-tracking branches to the ones matching your shell glob. If the pattern lacks?,*, or[,/*at the end is implied. Slay. ✨--glob=<glob-pattern>— pretend every ref matching the shell glob<glob-pattern>is listed on the command line as<commit>. Leadingrefs/, is automatically prepended if missing. If the pattern lacks?,*, or[,/*at the end is implied. Obsessed with a good glob. 🦋--exclude=<glob-pattern>— do not include refs matching<glob-pattern>that the next--all,--branches,--tags,--remotes, or--globwould otherwise consider. Repetitions of this option accumulate exclusion patterns up to the next--all,--branches,--tags,--remotes, or--globoption — and yes, other options or arguments do not clear accumulated patterns. Important bestie detail. 🫶
The patterns you give should not begin with refs/heads, refs/tags, or refs/remotes when applied to --branches, --tags, or --remotes, respectively, and they must begin with refs/ when applied to --glob or --all. If a trailing /* is intended, it must be given explicitly. No vibes-based guessing here. 💀
--exclude-hidden=(fetch|receive|uploadpack)— do not include refs that would be hidden bygit-fetch,git-receive-packorgit-upload-packby consulting the appropriatefetch.hideRefs,receive.hideRefsoruploadpack.hideRefsconfiguration along withtransfer.hideRefs(seegit-config(1)). This option affects the next pseudo-ref option--allor--globand is cleared after processing them. So it's like, one-and-done energy. 🎀--reflog— pretend as if all objects mentioned by reflogs are listed on the command line as<commit>. Reflog girlies rise. 💖--alternate-refs— pretend as if all objects mentioned as ref tips of alternate repositories were listed on the command line. An alternate repository is any repository whose object directory is specified inobjects/info/alternates. The set of included objects may be modified bycore.alternateRefsCommand, etc. Seegit-config(1). Very "it's giving shared object store" of it. 🌸--single-worktree— by default, all working trees will be examined by the following options when there are more than one (seegit-worktree(1)):--all,--reflogand--indexed-objects. This option forces them to examine the current working tree only. Main character working tree only, periodt. 👑--ignore-missing— upon seeing an invalid object name in the input, pretend as if the bad input was not given. We simply do not see it. 🙈--bisect— pretend as if the bad bisection refrefs/bisect/badwas listed and as if it was followed by--notand the good bisection refsrefs/bisect/good-*on the command line. Bisect drama, but make it command-line. 🔥--stdin— in addition to getting arguments from the command line, read them from standard input as well. This accepts commits and pseudo-options like--alland--glob=. When a--separator is seen, the following input is treated as paths and used to limit the result. Flags like--notwhich are read via standard input are only respected for arguments passed in the same way and will not influence any subsequent command line arguments. So stdin flags stay in their lane, fr fr. 😭--cherry-mark— like--cherry-pick(see below) but mark equivalent commits with=rather than omitting them, and inequivalent ones with+. Little marks, big communication. ⭐--cherry-pick— omit any commit that introduces the same change as another commit on the “other side” when the set of commits are limited with symmetric difference.
For example, if you have two branches, A and B, a usual way to list all commits on only one side of them is with --left-right (see the example below in the description of the --left-right option). However, it shows the commits that were cherry-picked from the other branch — for example, “3rd on b” may be cherry-picked from branch A. With this option, such pairs of commits are excluded from the output. No duplicate-change jumpscares. 💅
--left-only,--right-only— list only commits on the respective side of a symmetric difference, i.e. only those which would be marked<resp.>by--left-right.
For example, --cherry-pick --right-only A...B omits those commits from B which are in A or are patch-equivalent to a commit in A. In other words, this lists the + commits from git cherry A B. More precisely, --cherry-pick --right-only --no-merges gives the exact list. Exact list or it didn't happen. ✨
--cherry— a synonym for--right-only --cherry-mark --no-merges; useful to limit the output to the commits on our side and mark those that have been applied to the other side of a forked history withgit log --cherry upstream...mybranch, similar togit cherry upstream mybranch. One-word wonder. 🍓-g,--walk-reflogs— instead of walking the commit ancestry chain, walk reflog entries from the most recent one to older ones. When this option is used you cannot specify commits to exclude — that is,^<commit>,<commit1>..<commit2>, and<commit1>...<commit2>notations cannot be used. The rules are ruling. 🎀
With --pretty format other than oneline and reference (for obvious reasons), this causes the output to have two extra lines of information taken from the reflog. The reflog designator in the output may be shown as ref@{<Nth>} (where <Nth> is the reverse-chronological index in the reflog) or as ref@{<timestamp>} (with the <timestamp> for that entry), depending on a few rules:
- If the starting point is specified as
ref@{<Nth>}, show the index format. - If the starting point was specified as
ref@{now}, show the timestamp format. - If neither was used, but
--datewas given on the command line, show the timestamp in the format requested by--date. - Otherwise, show the index format.
Under --pretty=oneline, the commit message is prefixed with this information on the same line. This option cannot be combined with --reverse. See also git-reflog(1).
Under --pretty=reference, this information will not be shown at all. Respect the format. 💜
--merge— show commits touching conflicted paths in the rangeHEAD...<other>, where<other>is the first existing pseudoref inMERGE_HEAD,CHERRY_PICK_HEAD,REVERT_HEADorREBASE_HEAD. Only works when the index has unmerged entries. This option can be used to show relevant commits when resolving conflicts from a 3-way merge. Conflict resolution, but make it curated. 🌈--boundary— output excluded boundary commits. Boundary commits are prefixed with-. Tiny dash, big meaning. ⭐
🌿 History Simplification 🌿
Sometimes you are only interested in parts of the history, for example the commits modifying a particular <path>. But there are two parts of History Simplification: one part is selecting the commits and the other is how to do it, as there are various strategies to simplify the history. Two-step icon behavior. 👑
The following options select the commits to be shown:
<paths>— commits modifying the given<paths>are selected. Path girlies, this one's for you. 🦋--simplify-by-decoration— commits that are referred by some branch or tag are selected. Fancy refs only. 🎀
Note that extra commits can be shown to give a meaningful history. Not every included commit is a "selected" commit — it's giving context. ✨
The following options affect the way the simplification is performed:
- Default mode — simplifies the history to the simplest history explaining the final state of the tree. Simplest because it prunes some side branches if the end result is the same (i.e. merging branches with the same content). Lowkey minimalist. 💅
--show-pulls— include all commits from the default mode, but also any merge commits that are not TREESAME to the first parent but are TREESAME to a later parent. This mode is helpful for showing the merge commits that "first introduced" a change to a branch. Main character merge commits. 🔥--full-history— same as the default mode, but does not prune some history. No pruning, no problem. 🌸--dense— only the selected commits are shown, plus some to have a meaningful history. Dense but cute. 💖--sparse— all commits in the simplified history are shown. Sparse said "show everything," and honestly? Valid. 🫶--simplify-merges— additional option to--full-historyto remove some needless merges from the resulting history, as there are no selected commits contributing to this merge. Bye, needless merges. 👋--ancestry-path[=<commit>]— when given a range of commits to display (e.g.<commit1>..<commit2>or<commit2> ^<commit1>), and a commit<commit>in that range, only display commits in that range that are ancestors of<commit>, descendants of<commit>, or<commit>itself. If no commit is specified, use<commit1>(the excluded part of the range) as<commit>. Can be passed multiple times; if so, a commit is included if it is any of the commits given or if it is an ancestor or descendant of one of them. Ancestry path stays booked and busy. 💜
A more detailed explanation follows. Grab a snack, bestie. 🍓
Suppose you specified foo as the <paths>. We shall call commits that modify foo !TREESAME, and the rest TREESAME. (In a diff filtered for foo, they look different and equal, respectively.) Yes, the ! is doing a lot of work. 😭
In the following, we will always refer to the same example history to illustrate the differences between simplification settings. We assume that you are filtering for a file foo in this commit graph:
.-A---M---N---O---P---Q
/ / / / / /
I B C D E Y
\ / / / / /
`-------------' XThe horizontal line of history A---Q is taken to be the first parent of each merge. The commits are:
Iis the initial commit, in whichfooexists with contentsasdf, and a filequuxexists with contentsquux. Initial commits are compared to an empty tree, soIis !TREESAME. Iconic beginning. 🌱- In
A,foocontains justfoo. Simple. Clean. Slay. ✨ Bcontains the same change asA. Its mergeMis trivial and hence TREESAME to all parents. No notes. 💅Cdoes not changefoo, but its mergeNchanges it tofoobar, so it is not TREESAME to any parent. Plot twist. 😭Dsetsfootobaz. Its mergeOcombines the strings fromNandDtofoobarbaz; i.e., it is not TREESAME to any parent. String combo meal. 🍔Echangesquuxtoxyzzy, and its mergePcombines the strings toquux xyzzy.Pis TREESAME toO, but not toE. We love a merge with range. 🌈Xis an independent root commit that added a new fileside, andYmodified it.Yis TREESAME toX. Its mergeQaddedsidetoP, andQis TREESAME toP, but not toY. Independent root commit energy. 👑
rev-list walks backwards through history, including or excluding commits based on whether --full-history and/or parent rewriting (via --parents or --children) are used. The following settings are available.
Default mode 🫶
okay so default mode is the baseline vibe. Commits get included if they're not TREESAME to any parent — though bestie, you can change that, see --sparse below. If the commit was a merge and it was TREESAME to one parent, follow only that parent. (Even if there are several TREESAME parents, follow only one of them.) Otherwise, follow all parents.
This results in:
.-A---N---O
/ / /
I---------DNote how the rule to only follow the TREESAME parent, if one is available, removed B from consideration entirely. C was considered via N, but is TREESAME. Root commits are compared to an empty tree, so I is !TREESAME.
Parent/child relations are only visible with --parents, but that does not affect the commits selected in default mode, so we have shown the parent lines.
--full-history without parent rewriting 💅
This mode differs from the default in one point: always follow all parents of a merge, even if it is TREESAME to one of them. Even if more than one side of the merge has commits that are included, this does not imply that the merge itself is included! In the example, we get
I A B N D O P QM was excluded because it is TREESAME to both parents. E, C and B were all walked, but only B was !TREESAME, so the others do not appear.
Note that without parent rewriting, it is not really possible to talk about the parent/child relationships between the commits, so we show them disconnected.
--full-history with parent rewriting ✨
Ordinary commits are only included if they are !TREESAME (though this can be changed, see --sparse below).
Merges are always included. However, their parent list is rewritten: Along each parent, prune away commits that are not included themselves. This results in
.-A---M---N---O---P---Q
/ / / / /
I B / D /
\ / / / /
`-------------'Compare to --full-history without rewriting above. Note that E was pruned away because it is TREESAME, but the parent list of P was rewritten to contain E's parent I. The same happened for C and N, and X, Y and Q.
In addition to the above settings, you can change whether TREESAME affects inclusion:
--dense 🌸
Commits that are walked are included if they are not TREESAME to any parent.
--sparse 🦋
All commits that are walked are included.
Note that without --full-history, this still simplifies merges: if one of the parents is TREESAME, we follow only that one, so the other sides of the merge are never walked.
--simplify-merges 👑
First, build a history graph in the same way that --full-history with parent rewriting does (see above).
Then simplify each commit C to its replacement C' in the final history according to the following rules:
- Set
C'toC. - Replace each parent
PofC'with its simplificationP'. In the process, drop parents that are ancestors of other parents or that are root commitsTREESAMEto an empty tree, and remove duplicates, but take care to never drop all parents that we areTREESAMEto. - If after this parent rewriting,
C'is a root or merge commit (has zero or>1parents), a boundary commit, or!TREESAME, it remains. Otherwise, it is replaced with its only parent.
The effect of this is best shown by way of comparing to --full-history with parent rewriting. The example turns into:
.-A---M---N---O
/ / /
I B D
\ / /
`---------'Note the major differences in N, P, and Q over --full-history:
- N's parent list had I removed, because it is an ancestor of the other parent M. Still, N remained because it is
!TREESAME. - P's parent list similarly had I removed. P was then removed completely, because it had one parent and is
TREESAME. - Q's parent list had Y simplified to X. X was then removed, because it was a
TREESAMEroot. Q was then removed completely, because it had one parent and isTREESAME.
There is another simplification mode available:
--ancestry-path[=<commit>] 🧚
Limit the displayed commits to those which are an ancestor of <commit>, or which are a descendant of <commit>, or are <commit> itself.
As an example use case, consider the following commit history:
D---E-------F
/ \ \
B---C---G---H---I---J
/ \
A-------K---------------L--MA regular D..M computes the set of commits that are ancestors of M, but excludes the ones that are ancestors of D. This is useful to see what happened to the history leading to M since D, in the sense that "what does M have that did not exist in D". The result in this example would be all the commits, except A and B (and D itself, of course).
When we want to find out what commits in M are contaminated with the bug introduced by D and need fixing, however, we might want to view only the subset of D..M that are actually descendants of D, i.e. excluding C and K. This is exactly what the --ancestry-path option does. Applied to the D..M range, it results in:
E-------F
\ \
G---H---I---J
\
L--MWe can also use --ancestry-path=D instead of --ancestry-path which means the same thing when applied to the D..M range but is just more explicit.
If we instead are interested in a given topic within this range, and all commits affected by that topic, we may only want to view the subset of D..M which contain that topic in their ancestry path. So, using --ancestry-path=H D..M for example would result in:
E
\
C---G---H---I---J
\
L--MWhereas --ancestry-path=K D..M would result in
K---------------L--MBefore discussing another option, --show-pulls, we need to create a new example history.
A common problem users face when looking at simplified history is that a commit they know changed a file somehow does not appear in the file's simplified history. Let's demonstrate a new example and show how options such as --full-history and --simplify-merges works in that case:
.-A---M-----C--N---O---P
/ / \ \ \/ / /
I B \ R-'`-Z' /
\ / \/ /
\ / /\ /
`---X--' `---Y--'For this example, suppose I created file.txt which was modified by A, B, and X in different ways. The single-parent commits C, Z, and Y do not change file.txt. The merge commit M was created by resolving the merge conflict to include both changes from A and B and hence is not TREESAME to either. The merge commit R, however, was created by ignoring the contents of file.txt at M and taking only the contents of file.txt at X. Hence, R is TREESAME to X but not M. Finally, the natural merge resolution to create N is to take the contents of file.txt at R, so N is TREESAME to R but not C. The merge commits O and P are TREESAME to their first parents, but not to their second parents, Z and Y respectively.
When using the default mode, N and R both have a TREESAME parent, so those edges are walked and the others are ignored. The resulting history graph is:
I---XWhen using --full-history, Git walks every edge. This will discover the commits A and B and the merge M, but also will reveal the merge commits O and P. With parent rewriting, the resulting graph is:
.-A---M--------N---O---P
/ / \ \ \/ / /
I B \ R-'`--' /
\ / \/ /
\ / /\ /
`---X--' `------'Here, the merge commits O and P contribute extra noise, as they did not actually contribute a change to file.txt. They only merged a topic that was based on an older version of file.txt. This is a common issue in repositories using a workflow where many contributors work in parallel and merge their topic branches along a single trunk: many unrelated merges appear in the --full-history results.
When using the --simplify-merges option, the commits O and P disappear from the results. This is because the rewritten second parents of O and P are reachable from their first parents. Those edges are removed and then the commits look like single-parent commits that are TREESAME to their parent. This also happens to the commit N, resulting in a history view as follows:
.-A---M--.
/ / \
I B R
\ / /
\ / /
`---X--'In this view, we see all of the important single-parent changes from A, B, and X. We also see the carefully-resolved merge M and the not-so-carefully-resolved merge R. This is usually enough information to determine why the commits A and B "disappeared" from history in the default view. However, there are a few issues with this approach.
The first issue is performance. Unlike any previous option, the --simplify-merges option requires walking the entire commit history before returning a single result. This can make the option difficult to use for very large repositories.
🚨 real talk: that's a whole-history walk before you get even one result — plan accordingly for huge repos.
The second issue is one of auditing. When many contributors are working on the same repository, it is important which merge commits introduced a change into an important branch. The problematic merge R above is not likely to be the merge commit that was used to merge into an important branch. Instead, the merge N was used to merge R and X into the important branch. This commit may have information about why the change X came to override the changes from A and B in its commit message.
--show-pulls 🔥
In addition to the commits shown in the default history, show each merge commit that is not TREESAME to its first parent but is TREESAME to a later parent.
okay so when a merge commit gets included by --show-pulls, the merge is treated as if it “pulled” the change from another branch. When you use --show-pulls on this example (and no other options), the resulting graph is:
I---X---R---NHere, the merge commits R and N are included because they pulled the commits X and R into the base branch, respectively. These merges are the reason the commits A and B do not appear in the default history. iykyk 💅
When --show-pulls is paired with --simplify-merges, the graph includes all of the necessary information:
.-A---M--. N
/ / \ /
I B R
\ / /
\ / /
`---X--'Notice that since M is reachable from R, the edge from N to M was simplified away. However, N still appears in the history as an important commit because it “pulled” the change R into the main branch. iconic behavior honestly ✨
The --simplify-by-decoration option lets you view only the big picture of the topology of the history, by omitting commits that are not referenced by tags. Commits are marked as !TREESAME (in other words, kept after history simplification rules described above) if (1) they are referenced by tags, or (2) they change the contents of the paths given on the command line. All other commits are marked as TREESAME (subject to be simplified away). fr fr 🦋
🌸 Commit Ordering 🌸
By default, the commits are shown in reverse chronological order. the way it just works ✨
--date-order— Show no parents before all of its children are shown, but otherwise show commits in the commit timestamp order.--author-date-order— Show no parents before all of its children are shown, but otherwise show commits in the author timestamp order.--topo-order— Show no parents before all of its children are shown, and avoid showing commits on multiple lines of history intermixed.
For example, in a commit history like this:
---1----2----4----7
\ \
3----5----6----8---where the numbers denote the order of commit timestamps, git rev-list and friends with --date-order show the commits in the timestamp order: 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. clean 🍓
With --topo-order, they would show 8 6 5 3 7 4 2 1 (or 8 7 4 2 6 5 3 1); some older commits are shown before newer ones in order to avoid showing the commits from two parallel development track mixed together. no cap 💀
--reverse— Output the commits chosen to be shown (see Commit Limiting section above) in reverse order. Cannot be combined with--walk-reflogs.
🦋 Object Traversal 🦋
These options are mostly targeted for packing of Git repositories. lowkey niche but we love her 🎀
--no-walk[=(sorted|unsorted)]— Only show the given commits, but do not traverse their ancestors. This has no effect if a range is specified. If the argumentunsortedis given, the commits are shown in the order they were given on the command line. Otherwise (ifsortedor no argument was given), the commits are shown in reverse chronological order by commit time. Cannot be combined with--graph.--do-walk— Overrides a previous--no-walk.
✨ OUTPUT ✨
By default, or with --ref-action=update, this command produces no output on success, as refs are updated directly using an atomic transaction. silent but deadly (in a good way) 💚
When using --ref-action=print, the output is usable as input to git update-ref --stdin. It is of the form:
update refs/heads/branch1 ${NEW_branch1_HASH} ${OLD_branch1_HASH}
update refs/heads/branch2 ${NEW_branch2_HASH} ${OLD_branch2_HASH}
update refs/heads/branch3 ${NEW_branch3_HASH} ${OLD_branch3_HASH}where the number of refs updated depends on the arguments passed and the shape of the history being replayed. When using --advance or --revert, the number of refs updated is always one, but for --onto, it can be one or more (rebasing multiple branches simultaneously is supported). multi-branch slay 👑
There is no stderr output on conflicts; see the EXIT STATUS section below. keep scrolling bestie 🫶
💀 EXIT STATUS 💀
For a successful, non-conflicted replay, the exit status is 0. When the replay has conflicts, the exit status is 1. If the replay is not able to complete (or start) due to some kind of error, the exit status is something other than 0 or 1. respect the status code hierarchy 🚨
🎀 EXAMPLES 🎀
To simply rebase mybranch onto target:
$ git replay --onto=target origin/main..mybranchThe refs are updated atomically and no output is produced on success. clean and quiet ✨
To see what would be updated without actually updating:
$ git replay --ref-action=print --onto=target origin/main..mybranch
update refs/heads/mybranch ${NEW_mybranch_HASH} ${OLD_mybranch_HASH}To cherry-pick the commits from mybranch onto target:
$ git replay --advance=target origin/main..mybranchNote that the first two examples replay the exact same commits and on top of the exact same new base, they only differ in that the first updates mybranch to point at the new commits and the second updates target to point at them. same energy, different destination 🦋
What if you have a stack of branches, one depending upon another, and you’d really like to rebase the whole set?
$ git replay --contained --onto=origin/main origin/main..tipbranchAll three branches (branch1, branch2, and tipbranch) are updated atomically. stacked branches ate 💅
When calling git replay, one does not need to specify a range of commits to replay using the syntax A..B; any range expression will do:
$ git replay --onto=origin/main ^base branch1 branch2 branch3This will simultaneously rebase branch1, branch2, and branch3, all commits they have since base, playing them on top of origin/main. These three branches may have commits on top of base that they have in common, but that does not need to be the case. flexible range energy 🔥
To revert commits on a branch:
$ git replay --revert=main topic~2..topicThis reverts the last two commits from topic, creating revert commits on top of main, and updates main to point at the result. This is useful when commits from topic were previously merged or cherry-picked into main and need to be undone. undo era 🙈
Note For reverting an entire merge request as a single commit (rather than commit-by-commit), consider using git merge-tree --merge-base $TIP HEAD $BASE which can avoid unnecessary merge conflicts. big brain move 🧚
To replay onto a specific commit while updating a different reference:
$ git replay --onto=112233 --ref=refs/heads/mybranch aabbcc..ddeeffThis replays the range aabbcc..ddeeff onto commit 112233 and updates refs/heads/mybranch to point at the result. This can be useful when you want to use bare commit IDs instead of branch names. bare IDs? she’s versatile ⭐
🌈 CONFIGURATION 🌈
replay.refAction — Specifies the default mode for handling reference updates. The value can be:
update— (default) Update refs directly using an atomic transaction.print— Outputupdate-refcommands for pipeline use.
See --ref-action. set it and forget it 💖
👑 GIT 👑
Part of the git(1) suite. obviously 👑
💖 source/version check: Git 2.56.0 ✨ dated 2026-09-27 🎀 that’s GIT-REPLAY(1), periodt. slay forever 🫶
📦 where this page comes from
- arch rolling: git 2.56.0-1 · GPL-2.0-only
- 💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms