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

6       git-notes - Add or inspect object notes
7

SYNOPSIS

9       git notes [list [<object>]]
10       git notes add [-f] [--allow-empty] [-F <file> | -m <msg> | (-c | -C) <object>] [<object>]
11       git notes copy [-f] ( --stdin | <from-object> <to-object> )
12       git notes append [--allow-empty] [-F <file> | -m <msg> | (-c | -C) <object>] [<object>]
13       git notes edit [--allow-empty] [<object>]
14       git notes show [<object>]
15       git notes merge [-v | -q] [-s <strategy> ] <notes-ref>
16       git notes merge --commit [-v | -q]
17       git notes merge --abort [-v | -q]
18       git notes remove [--ignore-missing] [--stdin] [<object>...]
19       git notes prune [-n] [-v]
20       git notes get-ref
21
22

DESCRIPTION

24       Adds, removes, or reads notes attached to objects, without touching the
25       objects themselves.
26
27       By default, notes are saved to and read from refs/notes/commits, but
28       this default can be overridden. See the OPTIONS, CONFIGURATION, and
29       ENVIRONMENT sections below. If this ref does not exist, it will be
30       quietly created when it is first needed to store a note.
31
32       A typical use of notes is to supplement a commit message without
33       changing the commit itself. Notes can be shown by git log along with
34       the original commit message. To distinguish these notes from the
35       message stored in the commit object, the notes are indented like the
36       message, after an unindented line saying "Notes (<refname>):" (or
37       "Notes:" for refs/notes/commits).
38
39       Notes can also be added to patches prepared with git format-patch by
40       using the --notes option. Such notes are added as a patch commentary
41       after a three dash separator line.
42
43       To change which notes are shown by git log, see the "notes.displayRef"
44       configuration in git-log(1).
45
46       See the "notes.rewrite.<command>" configuration for a way to carry
47       notes across commands that rewrite commits.
48

SUBCOMMANDS

50       list
51           List the notes object for a given object. If no object is given,
52           show a list of all note objects and the objects they annotate (in
53           the format "<note object> <annotated object>"). This is the default
54           subcommand if no subcommand is given.
55
56       add
57           Add notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD). Abort if the
58           object already has notes (use -f to overwrite existing notes).
59           However, if you’re using add interactively (using an editor to
60           supply the notes contents), then - instead of aborting - the
61           existing notes will be opened in the editor (like the edit
62           subcommand).
63
64       copy
65           Copy the notes for the first object onto the second object. Abort
66           if the second object already has notes, or if the first object has
67           none (use -f to overwrite existing notes to the second object).
68           This subcommand is equivalent to: git notes add [-f] -C $(git notes
69           list <from-object>) <to-object>
70
71           In --stdin mode, take lines in the format
72
73               <from-object> SP <to-object> [ SP <rest> ] LF
74
75           on standard input, and copy the notes from each <from-object> to
76           its corresponding <to-object>. (The optional <rest> is ignored so
77           that the command can read the input given to the post-rewrite
78           hook.)
79
80       append
81           Append to the notes of an existing object (defaults to HEAD).
82           Creates a new notes object if needed.
83
84       edit
85           Edit the notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD).
86
87       show
88           Show the notes for a given object (defaults to HEAD).
89
90       merge
91           Merge the given notes ref into the current notes ref. This will try
92           to merge the changes made by the given notes ref (called "remote")
93           since the merge-base (if any) into the current notes ref (called
94           "local").
95
96           If conflicts arise and a strategy for automatically resolving
97           conflicting notes (see the "NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES" section) is not
98           given, the "manual" resolver is used. This resolver checks out the
99           conflicting notes in a special worktree
100           (.git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE), and instructs the user to manually
101           resolve the conflicts there. When done, the user can either
102           finalize the merge with git notes merge --commit, or abort the
103           merge with git notes merge --abort.
104
105       remove
106           Remove the notes for given objects (defaults to HEAD). When giving
107           zero or one object from the command line, this is equivalent to
108           specifying an empty note message to the edit subcommand.
109
110       prune
111           Remove all notes for non-existing/unreachable objects.
112
113       get-ref
114           Print the current notes ref. This provides an easy way to retrieve
115           the current notes ref (e.g. from scripts).
116

OPTIONS

118       -f, --force
119           When adding notes to an object that already has notes, overwrite
120           the existing notes (instead of aborting).
121
122       -m <msg>, --message=<msg>
123           Use the given note message (instead of prompting). If multiple -m
124           options are given, their values are concatenated as separate
125           paragraphs. Lines starting with # and empty lines other than a
126           single line between paragraphs will be stripped out.
127
128       -F <file>, --file=<file>
129           Take the note message from the given file. Use - to read the note
130           message from the standard input. Lines starting with # and empty
131           lines other than a single line between paragraphs will be stripped
132           out.
133
134       -C <object>, --reuse-message=<object>
135           Take the given blob object (for example, another note) as the note
136           message. (Use git notes copy <object> instead to copy notes between
137           objects.)
138
139       -c <object>, --reedit-message=<object>
140           Like -C, but with -c the editor is invoked, so that the user can
141           further edit the note message.
142
143       --allow-empty
144           Allow an empty note object to be stored. The default behavior is to
145           automatically remove empty notes.
146
147       --ref <ref>
148           Manipulate the notes tree in <ref>. This overrides GIT_NOTES_REF
149           and the "core.notesRef" configuration. The ref specifies the full
150           refname when it begins with refs/notes/; when it begins with
151           notes/, refs/ and otherwise refs/notes/ is prefixed to form a full
152           name of the ref.
153
154       --ignore-missing
155           Do not consider it an error to request removing notes from an
156           object that does not have notes attached to it.
157
158       --stdin
159           Also read the object names to remove notes from the standard input
160           (there is no reason you cannot combine this with object names from
161           the command line).
162
163       -n, --dry-run
164           Do not remove anything; just report the object names whose notes
165           would be removed.
166
167       -s <strategy>, --strategy=<strategy>
168           When merging notes, resolve notes conflicts using the given
169           strategy. The following strategies are recognized: "manual"
170           (default), "ours", "theirs", "union" and "cat_sort_uniq". This
171           option overrides the "notes.mergeStrategy" configuration setting.
172           See the "NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES" section below for more information
173           on each notes merge strategy.
174
175       --commit
176           Finalize an in-progress git notes merge. Use this option when you
177           have resolved the conflicts that git notes merge stored in
178           .git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE. This amends the partial merge commit
179           created by git notes merge (stored in .git/NOTES_MERGE_PARTIAL) by
180           adding the notes in .git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE. The notes ref stored
181           in the .git/NOTES_MERGE_REF symref is updated to the resulting
182           commit.
183
184       --abort
185           Abort/reset an in-progress git notes merge, i.e. a notes merge with
186           conflicts. This simply removes all files related to the notes
187           merge.
188
189       -q, --quiet
190           When merging notes, operate quietly.
191
192       -v, --verbose
193           When merging notes, be more verbose. When pruning notes, report all
194           object names whose notes are removed.
195

DISCUSSION

197       Commit notes are blobs containing extra information about an object
198       (usually information to supplement a commit’s message). These blobs are
199       taken from notes refs. A notes ref is usually a branch which contains
200       "files" whose paths are the object names for the objects they describe,
201       with some directory separators included for performance reasons [1].
202
203       Every notes change creates a new commit at the specified notes ref. You
204       can therefore inspect the history of the notes by invoking, e.g., git
205       log -p notes/commits. Currently the commit message only records which
206       operation triggered the update, and the commit authorship is determined
207       according to the usual rules (see git-commit(1)). These details may
208       change in the future.
209
210       It is also permitted for a notes ref to point directly to a tree
211       object, in which case the history of the notes can be read with git log
212       -p -g <refname>.
213

NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES

215       The default notes merge strategy is "manual", which checks out
216       conflicting notes in a special work tree for resolving notes conflicts
217       (.git/NOTES_MERGE_WORKTREE), and instructs the user to resolve the
218       conflicts in that work tree. When done, the user can either finalize
219       the merge with git notes merge --commit, or abort the merge with git
220       notes merge --abort.
221
222       Users may select an automated merge strategy from among the following
223       using either -s/--strategy option or configuring notes.mergeStrategy
224       accordingly:
225
226       "ours" automatically resolves conflicting notes in favor of the local
227       version (i.e. the current notes ref).
228
229       "theirs" automatically resolves notes conflicts in favor of the remote
230       version (i.e. the given notes ref being merged into the current notes
231       ref).
232
233       "union" automatically resolves notes conflicts by concatenating the
234       local and remote versions.
235
236       "cat_sort_uniq" is similar to "union", but in addition to concatenating
237       the local and remote versions, this strategy also sorts the resulting
238       lines, and removes duplicate lines from the result. This is equivalent
239       to applying the "cat | sort | uniq" shell pipeline to the local and
240       remote versions. This strategy is useful if the notes follow a
241       line-based format where one wants to avoid duplicated lines in the
242       merge result. Note that if either the local or remote version contain
243       duplicate lines prior to the merge, these will also be removed by this
244       notes merge strategy.
245

EXAMPLES

247       You can use notes to add annotations with information that was not
248       available at the time a commit was written.
249
250           $ git notes add -m 'Tested-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>' 72a144e2
251           $ git show -s 72a144e
252           [...]
253               Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
254
255           Notes:
256               Tested-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>
257
258
259       In principle, a note is a regular Git blob, and any kind of
260       (non-)format is accepted. You can binary-safely create notes from
261       arbitrary files using git hash-object:
262
263           $ cc *.c
264           $ blob=$(git hash-object -w a.out)
265           $ git notes --ref=built add --allow-empty -C "$blob" HEAD
266
267
268       (You cannot simply use git notes --ref=built add -F a.out HEAD because
269       that is not binary-safe.) Of course, it doesn’t make much sense to
270       display non-text-format notes with git log, so if you use such notes,
271       you’ll probably need to write some special-purpose tools to do
272       something useful with them.
273

CONFIGURATION

275       core.notesRef
276           Notes ref to read and manipulate instead of refs/notes/commits.
277           Must be an unabbreviated ref name. This setting can be overridden
278           through the environment and command line.
279
280       notes.mergeStrategy
281           Which merge strategy to choose by default when resolving notes
282           conflicts. Must be one of manual, ours, theirs, union, or
283           cat_sort_uniq. Defaults to manual. See "NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES"
284           section above for more information on each strategy.
285
286           This setting can be overridden by passing the --strategy option.
287
288       notes.<name>.mergeStrategy
289           Which merge strategy to choose when doing a notes merge into
290           refs/notes/<name>. This overrides the more general
291           "notes.mergeStrategy". See the "NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES" section
292           above for more information on each available strategy.
293
294       notes.displayRef
295           Which ref (or refs, if a glob or specified more than once), in
296           addition to the default set by core.notesRef or GIT_NOTES_REF, to
297           read notes from when showing commit messages with the git log
298           family of commands. This setting can be overridden on the command
299           line or by the GIT_NOTES_DISPLAY_REF environment variable. See git-
300           log(1).
301
302       notes.rewrite.<command>
303           When rewriting commits with <command> (currently amend or rebase),
304           if this variable is false, git will not copy notes from the
305           original to the rewritten commit. Defaults to true. See also
306           "notes.rewriteRef" below.
307
308           This setting can be overridden by the GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF
309           environment variable.
310
311       notes.rewriteMode
312           When copying notes during a rewrite, what to do if the target
313           commit already has a note. Must be one of overwrite, concatenate,
314           cat_sort_uniq, or ignore. Defaults to concatenate.
315
316           This setting can be overridden with the GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_MODE
317           environment variable.
318
319       notes.rewriteRef
320           When copying notes during a rewrite, specifies the (fully
321           qualified) ref whose notes should be copied. May be a glob, in
322           which case notes in all matching refs will be copied. You may also
323           specify this configuration several times.
324
325           Does not have a default value; you must configure this variable to
326           enable note rewriting.
327
328           Can be overridden with the GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF environment
329           variable.
330

ENVIRONMENT

332       GIT_NOTES_REF
333           Which ref to manipulate notes from, instead of refs/notes/commits.
334           This overrides the core.notesRef setting.
335
336       GIT_NOTES_DISPLAY_REF
337           Colon-delimited list of refs or globs indicating which refs, in
338           addition to the default from core.notesRef or GIT_NOTES_REF, to
339           read notes from when showing commit messages. This overrides the
340           notes.displayRef setting.
341
342           A warning will be issued for refs that do not exist, but a glob
343           that does not match any refs is silently ignored.
344
345       GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_MODE
346           When copying notes during a rewrite, what to do if the target
347           commit already has a note. Must be one of overwrite, concatenate,
348           cat_sort_uniq, or ignore. This overrides the core.rewriteMode
349           setting.
350
351       GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF
352           When rewriting commits, which notes to copy from the original to
353           the rewritten commit. Must be a colon-delimited list of refs or
354           globs.
355
356           If not set in the environment, the list of notes to copy depends on
357           the notes.rewrite.<command> and notes.rewriteRef settings.
358

GIT

360       Part of the git(1) suite
361

NOTES

363        1. Permitted pathnames have the form ab/cd/ef/.../abcdef...: a
364           sequence of directory names of two hexadecimal digits each followed
365           by a filename with the rest of the object ID.
366
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369
370Git 2.24.1                        12/10/2019                      GIT-NOTES(1)
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