git-notes

GIT-NOTES(1)                      Git Manual                      GIT-NOTES(1)

NAME
       git-notes - Add or inspect object notes

SYNOPSIS
       git notes [list [<object>]]
       git notes add [-f] [--allow-empty] [-F <file> | -m <msg> | (-c | -C) <object>] [<object>]
       git notes copy [-f] ( --stdin | <from-object> [<to-object>] )
       git notes append [--allow-empty] [-F <file> | -m <msg> | (-c | -C) <object>] [<object>]
       git notes edit [--allow-empty] [<object>]
       git notes show [<object>]
       git notes merge [-v | -q] [-s <strategy> ] <notes-ref>
       git notes merge --commit [-v | -q]
       git notes merge --abort [-v | -q]
       git notes remove [--ignore-missing] [--stdin] [<object>...]
       git notes prune [-n] [-v]
       git notes get-ref

DESCRIPTION
       Adds, removes, or reads notes attached to objects, without touching the
       objects themselves.

       By default, notes are saved to and read from refs/notes/commits, 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.

       A typical use of notes is to supplement a commit message without
       changing the commit itself. Notes can be shown by git log 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 (<refname>):" (or
       "Notes:" for refs/notes/commits).

       Notes can also be added to patches prepared with git format-patch by
       using the --notes option. Such notes are added as a patch commentary
       after a three dash separator line.

       To change which notes are shown by git log, see the "notes.displayRef"
       configuration in git-log(1).

       See the "notes.rewrite.<command>" configuration for a way to carry
       notes across commands that rewrite commits.

SUBCOMMANDS
       list
           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 "<note object> <annotated object>"). This is the default
           subcommand if no subcommand is given.

       add
           Add notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD). Abort if the
           object already has notes (use -f to overwrite existing notes).
           However, if you're using add interactively (using an editor to
           supply the notes contents), then - instead of aborting - the
           existing notes will be opened in the editor (like the edit
           subcommand).

       copy
           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: git notes
           add [-f] -C $(git notes list <from-object>) <to-object>

           In --stdin mode, take lines in the format

               <from-object> SP <to-object> [ SP <rest> ] LF

           on standard input, and copy the notes from each <from-object> to
           its corresponding <to-object>. (The optional <rest> is ignored so
           that the command can read the input given to the post-rewrite
           hook.)

       append
           Append to the notes of an existing object (defaults to HEAD).
           Creates a new notes object if needed.

       edit
           Edit the notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD).

       show
           Show the notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD).

       merge
           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").

           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
           (.git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE), and instructs the user to manually
           resolve the conflicts there. When done, the user can either
           finalize the merge with git notes merge --commit, or abort the
           merge with git notes merge --abort.

       remove
           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 edit subcommand.

       prune
           Remove all notes for non-existing/unreachable objects.

       get-ref
           Print the current notes ref. This provides an easy way to retrieve
           the current notes ref (e.g. from scripts).

OPTIONS
       -f, --force
           When adding notes to an object that already has notes, overwrite
           the existing notes (instead of aborting).

       -m <msg>, --message=<msg>
           Use the given note message (instead of prompting). If multiple -m
           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.

       -F <file>, --file=<file>
           Take the note message from the given file. Use - 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.

       -C <object>, --reuse-message=<object>
           Take the given blob object (for example, another note) as the note
           message. (Use git notes copy <object> instead to copy notes between
           objects.)

       -c <object>, --reedit-message=<object>
           Like -C, but with -c the editor is invoked, so that the user can
           further edit the note message.

       --allow-empty
           Allow an empty note object to be stored. The default behavior is to
           automatically remove empty notes.

       --ref <ref>
           Manipulate the notes tree in <ref>. This overrides GIT_NOTES_REF
           and the "core.notesRef" configuration. The ref specifies the full
           refname when it begins with refs/notes/; when it begins with
           notes/, refs/ and otherwise refs/notes/ is prefixed to form a full
           name of the ref.

       --ignore-missing
           Do not consider it an error to request removing notes from an
           object that does not have notes attached to it.

       --stdin
           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).

       -n, --dry-run
           Do not remove anything; just report the object names whose notes
           would be removed.

       -s <strategy>, --strategy=<strategy>
           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.

       --commit
           Finalize an in-progress git notes merge. Use this option when you
           have resolved the conflicts that git notes merge stored in
           .git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE. This amends the partial merge commit
           created by git notes merge (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.

       --abort
           Abort/reset an in-progress git notes merge, i.e. a notes merge with
           conflicts. This simply removes all files related to the notes
           merge.

       -q, --quiet
           When merging notes, operate quietly.

       -v, --verbose
           When merging notes, be more verbose. When pruning notes, report all
           object names whose notes are removed.

DISCUSSION
       Commit notes are blobs containing extra information about an object
       (usually information to supplement a commit's 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 [1].

       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., git
       log -p notes/commits. Currently the commit message only records which
       operation triggered the update, and the commit authorship is determined
       according to the usual rules (see git-commit(1)). These details may
       change in the future.

       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 git log
       -p -g <refname>.

NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES
       The default notes merge strategy is "manual", which checks out
       conflicting notes in a special work tree for resolving notes conflicts
       (.git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE), and instructs the user to resolve the
       conflicts in that work tree. When done, the user can either finalize
       the merge with git notes merge --commit, or abort the merge with git
       notes merge --abort.

       Users may select an automated merge strategy from among the following
       using either -s/--strategy option or configuring notes.mergeStrategy
       accordingly:

       "ours" automatically resolves conflicting notes in favor of the local
       version (i.e. the current notes ref).

       "theirs" automatically resolves notes conflicts in favor of the remote
       version (i.e. the given notes ref being merged into the current notes
       ref).

       "union" automatically resolves notes conflicts by concatenating the
       local and remote versions.

       "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.

EXAMPLES
       You can use notes to add annotations with information that was not
       available at the time a commit was written.

           $ git notes add -m 'Tested-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>' 72a144e2
           $ git show -s 72a144e
           [...]
               Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

           Notes:
               Tested-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>

       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 git hash-object:

           $ cc *.c
           $ blob=$(git hash-object -w a.out)
           $ git notes --ref=built add --allow-empty -C "$blob" HEAD

       (You cannot simply use git notes --ref=built add -F a.out HEAD because
       that is not binary-safe.) Of course, it doesn't make much sense to
       display non-text-format notes with git log, so if you use such notes,
       you'll probably need to write some special-purpose tools to do
       something useful with them.

CONFIGURATION
       core.notesRef
           Notes ref to read and manipulate instead of refs/notes/commits.
           Must be an unabbreviated ref name. This setting can be overridden
           through the environment and command line.

       notes.mergeStrategy
           Which merge strategy to choose by default when resolving notes
           conflicts. Must be one of manual, ours, theirs, union, or
           cat_sort_uniq. Defaults to manual. See "NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES"
           section above for more information on each strategy.

           This setting can be overridden by passing the --strategy option.

       notes.<name>.mergeStrategy
           Which merge strategy to choose when doing a notes merge into
           refs/notes/<name>. This overrides the more general
           "notes.mergeStrategy". See the "NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES" section
           above for more information on each available strategy.

       notes.displayRef
           Which ref (or refs, if a glob or specified more than once), in
           addition to the default set by core.notesRef or GIT_NOTES_REF, to
           read notes from when showing commit messages with the git log
           family of commands. This setting can be overridden on the command
           line or by the GIT_NOTES_DISPLAY_REF environment variable. See git-
           log(1).

       notes.rewrite.<command>
           When rewriting commits with <command> (currently amend or rebase),
           if this variable is false, git will not copy notes from the
           original to the rewritten commit. Defaults to true. See also
           "notes.rewriteRef" below.

           This setting can be overridden by the GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF
           environment variable.

       notes.rewriteMode
           When copying notes during a rewrite, what to do if the target
           commit already has a note. Must be one of overwrite, concatenate,
           cat_sort_uniq, or ignore. Defaults to concatenate.

           This setting can be overridden with the GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_MODE
           environment variable.

       notes.rewriteRef
           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.

           Does not have a default value; you must configure this variable to
           enable note rewriting.

           Can be overridden with the GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF environment
           variable.

ENVIRONMENT
       GIT_NOTES_REF
           Which ref to manipulate notes from, instead of refs/notes/commits.
           This overrides the core.notesRef setting.

       GIT_NOTES_DISPLAY_REF
           Colon-delimited list of refs or globs indicating which refs, in
           addition to the default from core.notesRef or GIT_NOTES_REF, to
           read notes from when showing commit messages. This overrides the
           notes.displayRef setting.

           A warning will be issued for refs that do not exist, but a glob
           that does not match any refs is silently ignored.

       GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_MODE
           When copying notes during a rewrite, what to do if the target
           commit already has a note. Must be one of overwrite, concatenate,
           cat_sort_uniq, or ignore. This overrides the core.rewriteMode
           setting.

       GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF
           When rewriting commits, which notes to copy from the original to
           the rewritten commit. Must be a colon-delimited list of refs or
           globs.

           If not set in the environment, the list of notes to copy depends on
           the notes.rewrite.<command> and notes.rewriteRef settings.

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

NOTES
        1. Permitted pathnames have the form ab/cd/ef/.../abcdef...: a
           sequence of directory names of two hexadecimal digits each followed
           by a filename with the rest of the object ID.

Git 2.25.1                        04/26/2023                      GIT-NOTES(1)