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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | SUBCOMMANDS | OPTIONS | DISCUSSION | NOTES MERGE STRATEGIES | EXAMPLES | CONFIGURATION | ENVIRONMENT | GIT | NOTES | COLOPHON |
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GIT-NOTES(1) Git Manual GIT-NOTES(1)
git-notes - Add or inspect object notes
git notes [list [<object>]]
git notes add [-f] [--allow-empty] [--[no-]separator | --separator=<paragraph-break>] [--[no-]stripspace] [-F <file> | -m <msg> | (-c | -C) <object>] [-e] [<object>]
git notes copy [-f] ( --stdin | <from-object> [<to-object>] )
git notes append [--allow-empty] [--[no-]separator | --separator=<paragraph-break>] [--[no-]stripspace] [-F <file> | -m <msg> | (-c | -C) <object>] [-e] [<object>]
git notes edit [--allow-empty] [<object>] [--[no-]stripspace]
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
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 discussion in CONFIGURATION.
See the notes.rewrite.<command> configuration for a way to carry
notes across commands that rewrite commits.
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). If you specify multiple -m and -F, a blank line
will be inserted between the messages. Use the --separator
option to insert other delimiters. You can use -e to edit and
fine-tune the message(s) supplied from -m and -F options
interactively (using an editor) before adding the note.
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.)
--stdin cannot be combined with object names given on the
command line.
append
Append new message(s) given by -m or -F options to an existing
note, or add them as a new note if one does not exist, for the
object (defaults to HEAD). When appending to an existing note,
a blank line is added before each new message as an
inter-paragraph separator. The separator can be customized
with the --separator option. Edit the notes to be appended
given by -m and -F options with -e interactively (using an
editor) before appending the note.
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.
In --stdin mode, also remove the object names given on
standard input. In other words, --stdin can be combined with
object names from the command line.
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).
-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.
-F <file>, --file=<file>
Take the note message from the given file. Use - to read the
note message from the standard input.
-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.) Implies --no-stripspace since the
default behavior is to copy the message verbatim.
-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.
--separator=<paragraph-break>, --separator, --no-separator
Specify a string used as a custom inter-paragraph separator (a
newline is added at the end as needed). If --no-separator, no
separators will be added between paragraphs. Defaults to a
blank line.
--stripspace, --no-stripspace
Clean up whitespace. Specifically (see git-stripspace(1)):
• remove trailing whitespace from all lines
• collapse multiple consecutive empty lines into one empty
line
• remove empty lines from the beginning and end of the input
• add a missing \n to the last line if necessary.
--stripspace is the default except for -C/--reuse-message.
However, keep in mind that this depends on the order of
similar options. For example, for -C <object> -m<message>,
--stripspace will be used because the default for -m overrides
the previous -C. This is a known limitation that may be fixed
in the future.
--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
Only valid for remove and copy. See the respective
subcommands.
-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.
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>.
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.
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 <[email protected]>' 72a144e2
$ git show -s 72a144e
[...]
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <[email protected]>
Notes:
Tested-by: Johannes Sixt <[email protected]>
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.
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.
Everything above this line in this section isn’t included from the
git-config(1) documentation. The content that follows is the same
as what’s found there:
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 the "NOTES MERGE
STRATEGIES" section of git-notes(1) for more information on
each strategy.
This setting can be overridden by passing the --strategy
option to git-notes(1).
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
in git-notes(1) for more information on the available
strategies.
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 with the GIT_NOTES_DISPLAY_REF
environment variable, which must be a colon separated list of
refs or globs.
A warning will be issued for refs that do not exist, but a
glob that does not match any refs is silently ignored.
This setting can be disabled by the --no-notes option to the
git-log(1) family of commands, or by the --notes=<ref> option
accepted by those commands.
The effective value of core.notesRef (possibly overridden by
GIT_NOTES_REF) is also implicitly added to the list of refs to
be displayed.
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 with the GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF
environment variable, which must be a colon separated list of
refs or globs.
notes.rewriteMode
When copying notes during a rewrite (see the
notes.rewrite.<command> option), determines 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. Set it to
refs/notes/commits to enable rewriting for the default commit
notes.
Can be overridden with the GIT_NOTES_REWRITE_REF environment
variable. See notes.rewrite.<command> above for a further
description of its format.
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.
Part of the git(1) suite
1. Permitted pathnames have the form bf/fe/30/.../680d5a...: a
sequence of directory names of two hexadecimal digits each
followed by a filename with the rest of the object ID.
This page is part of the git (Git distributed version control
system) project. Information about the project can be found at
⟨http://git-scm.com/⟩. If you have a bug report for this manual
page, see ⟨http://git-scm.com/community⟩. This page was obtained
from the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://github.com/git/git.git⟩ on 2025-08-11. (At that time,
the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2025-08-07.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
[email protected]
Git 2.51.0.rc1 2025-08-07 GIT-NOTES(1)
Pages that refer to this page: git(1), git-config(1), git-diff-tree(1), git-format-patch(1), git-log(1), git-notes(1), git-replay(1), git-show(1)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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