1GIT-TAG(1) Git Manual GIT-TAG(1)
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6 git-tag - Create, list, delete or verify a tag object signed with GPG
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9 git tag [-a | -s | -u <keyid>] [-f] [-m <msg> | -F <file>] [-e]
10 <tagname> [<commit> | <object>]
11 git tag -d <tagname>...
12 git tag [-n[<num>]] -l [--contains <commit>] [--no-contains <commit>]
13 [--points-at <object>] [--column[=<options>] | --no-column]
14 [--create-reflog] [--sort=<key>] [--format=<format>]
15 [--[no-]merged [<commit>]] [<pattern>...]
16 git tag -v [--format=<format>] <tagname>...
17
20 Add a tag reference in refs/tags/, unless -d/-l/-v is given to delete,
21 list or verify tags.
22 Unless -f is given, the named tag must not yet exist.
24 If one of -a, -s, or -u <keyid> is passed, the command creates a tag
26 object, and requires a tag message. Unless -m <msg> or -F <file> is
27 given, an editor is started for the user to type in the tag message.
28 If -m <msg> or -F <file> is given and -a, -s, and -u <keyid> are
30 absent, -a is implied.
31 Otherwise, a tag reference that points directly at the given object
33 (i.e., a lightweight tag) is created.
34 A GnuPG signed tag object will be created when -s or -u <keyid> is
36 used. When -u <keyid> is not used, the committer identity for the
37 current user is used to find the GnuPG key for signing. The
38 configuration variable gpg.program is used to specify custom GnuPG
39 binary.
40 Tag objects (created with -a, -s, or -u) are called "annotated" tags;
42 they contain a creation date, the tagger name and e-mail, a tagging
43 message, and an optional GnuPG signature. Whereas a "lightweight" tag
44 is simply a name for an object (usually a commit object).
45 Annotated tags are meant for release while lightweight tags are meant
47 for private or temporary object labels. For this reason, some git
48 commands for naming objects (like git describe) will ignore lightweight
49 tags by default.
50
52 -a, --annotate
53 Make an unsigned, annotated tag object
54 -s, --sign
56 Make a GPG-signed tag, using the default e-mail address’s key. The
57 default behavior of tag GPG-signing is controlled by tag.gpgSign
58 configuration variable if it exists, or disabled oder otherwise.
59 See git-config(1).
60 --no-sign
62 Override tag.gpgSign configuration variable that is set to force
63 each and every tag to be signed.
64 -u <keyid>, --local-user=<keyid>
66 Make a GPG-signed tag, using the given key.
67 -f, --force
69 Replace an existing tag with the given name (instead of failing)
70 -d, --delete
72 Delete existing tags with the given names.
73 -v, --verify
75 Verify the GPG signature of the given tag names.
76 -n<num>
78 <num> specifies how many lines from the annotation, if any, are
79 printed when using -l. Implies --list.
80 The default is not to print any annotation lines. If no number is
82 given to -n, only the first line is printed. If the tag is not
83 annotated, the commit message is displayed instead.
84 -l, --list
86 List tags. With optional <pattern>..., e.g. git tag --list 'v-*',
87 list only the tags that match the pattern(s).
88 Running "git tag" without arguments also lists all tags. The
90 pattern is a shell wildcard (i.e., matched using fnmatch(3)).
91 Multiple patterns may be given; if any of them matches, the tag is
92 shown.
93 This option is implicitly supplied if any other list-like option
95 such as --contains is provided. See the documentation for each of
96 those options for details.
97 --sort=<key>
99 Sort based on the key given. Prefix - to sort in descending order
100 of the value. You may use the --sort=<key> option multiple times,
101 in which case the last key becomes the primary key. Also supports
102 "version:refname" or "v:refname" (tag names are treated as
103 versions). The "version:refname" sort order can also be affected by
104 the "versionsort.suffix" configuration variable. The keys supported
105 are the same as those in git for-each-ref. Sort order defaults to
106 the value configured for the tag.sort variable if it exists, or
107 lexicographic order otherwise. See git-config(1).
108 --color[=<when>]
110 Respect any colors specified in the --format option. The <when>
111 field must be one of always, never, or auto (if <when> is absent,
112 behave as if always was given).
113 -i, --ignore-case
115 Sorting and filtering tags are case insensitive.
116 --column[=<options>], --no-column
118 Display tag listing in columns. See configuration variable
119 column.tag for option syntax.--column and --no-column without
120 options are equivalent to always and never respectively.
121 This option is only applicable when listing tags without annotation
123 lines.
124 --contains [<commit>]
126 Only list tags which contain the specified commit (HEAD if not
127 specified). Implies --list.
128 --no-contains [<commit>]
130 Only list tags which don’t contain the specified commit (HEAD if
131 not specified). Implies --list.
132 --merged [<commit>]
134 Only list tags whose commits are reachable from the specified
135 commit (HEAD if not specified), incompatible with --no-merged.
136 --no-merged [<commit>]
138 Only list tags whose commits are not reachable from the specified
139 commit (HEAD if not specified), incompatible with --merged.
140 --points-at <object>
142 Only list tags of the given object (HEAD if not specified). Implies
143 --list.
144 -m <msg>, --message=<msg>
146 Use the given tag message (instead of prompting). If multiple -m
147 options are given, their values are concatenated as separate
148 paragraphs. Implies -a if none of -a, -s, or -u <keyid> is given.
149 -F <file>, --file=<file>
151 Take the tag message from the given file. Use - to read the message
152 from the standard input. Implies -a if none of -a, -s, or -u
153 <keyid> is given.
154 -e, --edit
156 The message taken from file with -F and command line with -m are
157 usually used as the tag message unmodified. This option lets you
158 further edit the message taken from these sources.
159 --cleanup=<mode>
161 This option sets how the tag message is cleaned up. The <mode> can
162 be one of verbatim, whitespace and strip. The strip mode is
163 default. The verbatim mode does not change message at all,
164 whitespace removes just leading/trailing whitespace lines and strip
165 removes both whitespace and commentary.
166 --create-reflog
168 Create a reflog for the tag. To globally enable reflogs for tags,
169 see core.logAllRefUpdates in git-config(1). The negated form
170 --no-create-reflog only overrides an earlier --create-reflog, but
171 currently does not negate the setting of core.logAllRefUpdates.
172 --format=<format>
174 A string that interpolates %(fieldname) from a tag ref being shown
175 and the object it points at. The format is the same as that of git-
176 for-each-ref(1). When unspecified, defaults to %(refname:strip=2).
177 <tagname>
179 The name of the tag to create, delete, or describe. The new tag
180 name must pass all checks defined by git-check-ref-format(1). Some
181 of these checks may restrict the characters allowed in a tag name.
182 <commit>, <object>
184 The object that the new tag will refer to, usually a commit.
185 Defaults to HEAD.
186
188 By default, git tag in sign-with-default mode (-s) will use your
189 committer identity (of the form Your Name <your@email.address>) to find
190 a key. If you want to use a different default key, you can specify it
191 in the repository configuration as follows:
192 [user]
194 signingKey = <gpg-keyid>
195 pager.tag is only respected when listing tags, i.e., when -l is used or
198 implied. The default is to use a pager. See git-config(1).
199
201 On Re-tagging
202 What should you do when you tag a wrong commit and you would want to
203 re-tag?
204 If you never pushed anything out, just re-tag it. Use "-f" to replace
206 the old one. And you’re done.
207 But if you have pushed things out (or others could just read your
209 repository directly), then others will have already seen the old tag.
210 In that case you can do one of two things:
211 1. The sane thing. Just admit you screwed up, and use a different
213 name. Others have already seen one tag-name, and if you keep the
214 same name, you may be in the situation that two people both have
215 "version X", but they actually have different "X"'s. So just call
216 it "X.1" and be done with it.
217 2. The insane thing. You really want to call the new version "X" too,
219 even though others have already seen the old one. So just use git
220 tag -f again, as if you hadn’t already published the old one.
221 However, Git does not (and it should not) change tags behind users
223 back. So if somebody already got the old tag, doing a git pull on your
224 tree shouldn’t just make them overwrite the old one.
225 If somebody got a release tag from you, you cannot just change the tag
227 for them by updating your own one. This is a big security issue, in
228 that people MUST be able to trust their tag-names. If you really want
229 to do the insane thing, you need to just fess up to it, and tell people
230 that you messed up. You can do that by making a very public
231 announcement saying:
232 Ok, I messed up, and I pushed out an earlier version tagged as X. I
234 then fixed something, and retagged the *fixed* tree as X again.
235 If you got the wrong tag, and want the new one, please delete
237 the old one and fetch the new one by doing:
238 git tag -d X
240 git fetch origin tag X
241 to get my updated tag.
243 You can test which tag you have by doing
245 git rev-parse X
247 which should return 0123456789abcdef.. if you have the new version.
249 Sorry for the inconvenience.
251 Does this seem a bit complicated? It should be. There is no way that it
254 would be correct to just "fix" it automatically. People need to know
255 that their tags might have been changed.
256 On Automatic following
258 If you are following somebody else’s tree, you are most likely using
259 remote-tracking branches (eg. refs/remotes/origin/master). You usually
260 want the tags from the other end.
261 On the other hand, if you are fetching because you would want a
263 one-shot merge from somebody else, you typically do not want to get
264 tags from there. This happens more often for people near the toplevel
265 but not limited to them. Mere mortals when pulling from each other do
266 not necessarily want to automatically get private anchor point tags
267 from the other person.
268 Often, "please pull" messages on the mailing list just provide two
270 pieces of information: a repo URL and a branch name; this is designed
271 to be easily cut&pasted at the end of a git fetch command line:
272 Linus, please pull from
274 git://git..../proj.git master
276 to get the following updates...
278 becomes:
281 $ git pull git://git..../proj.git master
283 In such a case, you do not want to automatically follow the other
286 person’s tags.
287 One important aspect of Git is its distributed nature, which largely
289 means there is no inherent "upstream" or "downstream" in the system. On
290 the face of it, the above example might seem to indicate that the tag
291 namespace is owned by the upper echelon of people and that tags only
292 flow downwards, but that is not the case. It only shows that the usage
293 pattern determines who are interested in whose tags.
294 A one-shot pull is a sign that a commit history is now crossing the
296 boundary between one circle of people (e.g. "people who are primarily
297 interested in the networking part of the kernel") who may have their
298 own set of tags (e.g. "this is the third release candidate from the
299 networking group to be proposed for general consumption with 2.6.21
300 release") to another circle of people (e.g. "people who integrate
301 various subsystem improvements"). The latter are usually not interested
302 in the detailed tags used internally in the former group (that is what
303 "internal" means). That is why it is desirable not to follow tags
304 automatically in this case.
305 It may well be that among networking people, they may want to exchange
307 the tags internal to their group, but in that workflow they are most
308 likely tracking each other’s progress by having remote-tracking
309 branches. Again, the heuristic to automatically follow such tags is a
310 good thing.
311 On Backdating Tags
313 If you have imported some changes from another VCS and would like to
314 add tags for major releases of your work, it is useful to be able to
315 specify the date to embed inside of the tag object; such data in the
316 tag object affects, for example, the ordering of tags in the gitweb
317 interface.
318 To set the date used in future tag objects, set the environment
320 variable GIT_COMMITTER_DATE (see the later discussion of possible
321 values; the most common form is "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM").
322 For example:
324 $ GIT_COMMITTER_DATE="2006-10-02 10:31" git tag -s v1.0.1
326
329 The GIT_AUTHOR_DATE, GIT_COMMITTER_DATE environment variables support
330 the following date formats:
331 Git internal format
333 It is <unix timestamp> <time zone offset>, where <unix timestamp>
334 is the number of seconds since the UNIX epoch. <time zone offset>
335 is a positive or negative offset from UTC. For example CET (which
336 is 1 hour ahead of UTC) is +0100.
337 RFC 2822
339 The standard email format as described by RFC 2822, for example
340 Thu, 07 Apr 2005 22:13:13 +0200.
341 ISO 8601
343 Time and date specified by the ISO 8601 standard, for example
344 2005-04-07T22:13:13. The parser accepts a space instead of the T
345 character as well.
346 Note
348 In addition, the date part is accepted in the following
349 formats: YYYY.MM.DD, MM/DD/YYYY and DD.MM.YYYY.
350
352 git-check-ref-format(1). git-config(1).
353
355 Part of the git(1) suite
356Git 2.24.1 12/10/2019 GIT-TAG(1)