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] [--[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

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
discussion in CONFIGURATION.

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). 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).

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.

-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)):

+o remove trailing whitespace from all lines

+o collapse multiple consecutive empty lines into one empty line

+o remove empty lines from the beginning and end of the input

+o 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.

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.

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.

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 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.


Git 2.50.1 2025-06-15 GIT-NOTES(1)