GIT-TAG(1) Git Manual GIT-TAG(1)
git-tag - Create, list, delete or verify tags
git tag [-a | -s | -u <key-id>] [-f] [-m <msg> | -F <file>] [-e]
[(--trailer <token>[(=|:)<value>])...]
<tagname> [<commit> | <object>]
git tag -d <tagname>...
git tag [-n[<num>]] -l [--contains <commit>] [--no-contains <commit>]
[--points-at <object>] [--column[=<options>] | --no-column]
[--create-reflog] [--sort=<key>] [--format=<format>]
[--merged <commit>] [--no-merged <commit>] [<pattern>...]
git tag -v [--format=<format>] <tagname>...
Add a tag reference in refs/tags/, unless -d/-l/-v is given to
delete, list or verify tags.
Unless -f is given, the named tag must not yet exist.
If one of -a, -s, or -u <key-id> is passed, the command creates a tag
object, and requires a tag message. Unless -m <msg> or -F <file> is
given, an editor is started for the user to type in the tag message.
If -m <msg> or -F <file> or --trailer <token>[=<value>] is given and
-a, -s, and -u <key-id> are absent, -a is implied.
Otherwise, a tag reference that points directly at the given object
(i.e., a lightweight tag) is created.
A cryptographically signed tag object will be created when -s or -u
<key-id> is used. The signing backend (GPG, X.509, SSH, etc.) is
controlled by the gpg.format configuration variable, defaulting to
OpenPGP. When -u <key-id> is not used, the committer identity for the
current user is used to find the key for signing. The configuration
variable gpg.program is used to specify a custom signing binary.
Tag objects (created with -a, -s, or -u) are called "annotated" tags;
they contain a creation date, the tagger name and e-mail, a tagging
message, and an optional cryptographic signature. Whereas a
"lightweight" tag is simply a name for an object (usually a commit
object).
Annotated tags are meant for release while lightweight tags are meant
for private or temporary object labels. For this reason, some git
commands for naming objects (like git describe) will ignore
lightweight tags by default.
-a, --annotate
Make an unsigned, annotated tag object
-s, --sign
Make a cryptographically signed tag, using the default signing
key. The signing backend used depends on the gpg.format
configuration variable. The default key is determined by the
backend. For GPG, it's based on the committer's email address,
while for SSH it may be a specific key file or agent identity.
See git-config(1).
--no-sign
Override tag.gpgSign configuration variable that is set to force
each and every tag to be signed.
-u <key-id>, --local-user=<key-id>
Make a cryptographically signed tag using the given key. The
format of the <key-id> and the backend used depend on the
gpg.format configuration variable. See git-config(1).
-f, --force
Replace an existing tag with the given name (instead of failing)
-d, --delete
Delete existing tags with the given names.
-v, --verify
Verify the cryptographic signature of the given tags.
-n<num>
<num> specifies how many lines from the annotation, if any, are
printed when using -l. Implies --list.
The default is not to print any annotation lines. If no number is
given to -n, only the first line is printed. If the tag is not
annotated, the commit message is displayed instead.
-l, --list
List tags. With optional <pattern>..., e.g. git tag --list
'v-*', list only the tags that match the pattern(s).
Running git tag without arguments also lists all tags. The
pattern is a shell wildcard (i.e., matched using fnmatch(3)).
Multiple patterns may be given; if any of them matches, the tag
is shown.
This option is implicitly supplied if any other list-like option
such as --contains is provided. See the documentation for each of
those options for details.
--sort=<key>
Sort based on the key given. Prefix - to sort in descending order
of the value. You may use the --sort=<key> option multiple times,
in which case the last <key> becomes the primary key. Also
supports "version:refname" or "v:refname" (tag names are treated
as versions). The "version:refname" sort order can also be
affected by the "versionsort.suffix" configuration variable. The
keys supported are the same as those in git for-each-ref. Sort
order defaults to the value configured for the tag.sort variable
if it exists, or lexicographic order otherwise. See git-
config(1).
--color[=<when>]
Respect any colors specified in the --format option. The <when>
field must be one of always, never, or auto (if <when> is absent,
behave as if always was given).
-i, --ignore-case
Sorting and filtering tags are case insensitive.
--omit-empty
Do not print a newline after formatted refs where the format
expands to the empty string.
--column[=<options>], --no-column
Display tag listing in columns. See configuration variable
column.tag for option syntax. --column and --no-column without
options are equivalent to always and never respectively.
This option is only applicable when listing tags without
annotation lines.
--contains [<commit>]
Only list tags which contain <commit> (HEAD if not specified).
Implies --list.
--no-contains [<commit>]
Only list tags which don't contain <commit> (HEAD if not
specified). Implies --list.
--merged [<commit>]
Only list tags whose commits are reachable from <commit> (HEAD if
not specified).
--no-merged [<commit>]
Only list tags whose commits are not reachable from <commit>
(HEAD if not specified).
--points-at [<object>]
Only list tags of <object> (HEAD if not specified). Implies
--list.
-m <msg>, --message=<msg>
Use <msg> (instead of prompting). If multiple -m options are
given, their values are concatenated as separate paragraphs.
Implies -a if none of -a, -s, or -u <key-id> is given.
-F <file>, --file=<file>
Take the tag message from <file>. Use - to read the message from
the standard input. Implies -a if none of -a, -s, or -u <key-id>
is given.
--trailer <token>[(=|:)<value>]
Specify a (<token>, <value>) pair that should be applied as a
trailer. (e.g. git tag --trailer "Custom-Key: value" will add a
"Custom-Key" trailer to the tag message.) The trailer.*
configuration variables (git-interpret-trailers(1)) can be used
to define if a duplicated trailer is omitted, where in the run of
trailers each trailer would appear, and other details. The
trailers can be extracted in git tag --list, using
--format="%(trailers)" placeholder.
-e, --edit
Let further edit the message taken from file with -F and command
line with -m.
--cleanup=<mode>
Set how the tag message is cleaned up. The <mode> can be one of
verbatim, whitespace and strip. The strip mode is default. The
verbatim mode does not change message at all, whitespace removes
just leading/trailing whitespace lines and strip removes both
whitespace and commentary.
--create-reflog
Create a reflog for the tag. To globally enable reflogs for tags,
see core.logAllRefUpdates in git-config(1). The negated form
--no-create-reflog only overrides an earlier --create-reflog, but
currently does not negate the setting of core.logAllRefUpdates.
--format=<format>
A string that interpolates %(fieldname) from a tag ref being
shown and the object it points at. The format is the same as that
of git-for-each-ref(1). When unspecified, defaults to
%(refname:strip=2).
<tagname>
The name of the tag to create, delete, or describe. The new tag
name must pass all checks defined by git-check-ref-format(1).
Some of these checks may restrict the characters allowed in a tag
name.
<commit>, <object>
The object that the new tag will refer to, usually a commit.
Defaults to HEAD.
By default, git tag in sign-with-default mode (-s) will use your
committer identity (of the form Your Name <your@email.address>) to
find a key. If you want to use a different default key, you can
specify it in the repository configuration as follows:
[user]
signingKey = <key-id>
The signing backend can be chosen via the gpg.format configuration
variable, which defaults to openpgp. See git-config(1) for a list of
other supported formats.
The path to the program used for each signing backend can be
specified with the gpg.<format>.program configuration variable. For
the openpgp backend, gpg.program can be used as a synonym for
gpg.openpgp.program. See git-config(1) for details.
pager.tag is only respected when listing tags, i.e., when -l is used
or implied. The default is to use a pager.
See git-config(1) for more details and other configuration variables.
On Re-tagging
What should you do when you tag a wrong commit and you would want to
re-tag?
If you never pushed anything out, just re-tag it. Use -f to replace
the old one. And you're done.
But if you have pushed things out (or others could just read your
repository directly), then others will have already seen the old tag.
In that case you can do one of two things:
1. The sane thing. Just admit you screwed up, and use a different
name. Others have already seen one tag-name, and if you keep the
same name, you may be in the situation that two people both have
"version X", but they actually have different "X"'s. So just call
it "X.1" and be done with it.
2. The insane thing. You really want to call the new version "X"
too, even though others have already seen the old one. So just
use git tag -f again, as if you hadn't already published the old
one.
However, Git does not (and it should not) change tags behind users
back. So if somebody already got the old tag, doing a git pull on
your tree shouldn't just make them overwrite the old one.
If somebody got a release tag from you, you cannot just change the
tag for them by updating your own one. This is a big security issue,
in that people MUST be able to trust their tag-names. If you really
want to do the insane thing, you need to just fess up to it, and tell
people that you messed up. You can do that by making a very public
announcement saying:
Ok, I messed up, and I pushed out an earlier version tagged as X. I
then fixed something, and retagged the *fixed* tree as X again.
If you got the wrong tag, and want the new one, please delete
the old one and fetch the new one by doing:
git tag -d X
git fetch origin tag X
to get my updated tag.
You can test which tag you have by doing
git rev-parse X
which should return 0123456789abcdef.. if you have the new version.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Does this seem a bit complicated? It should be. There is no way that
it would be correct to just "fix" it automatically. People need to
know that their tags might have been changed.
If you are following somebody else's tree, you are most likely using
remote-tracking branches (eg. refs/remotes/origin/master). You
usually want the tags from the other end.
On the other hand, if you are fetching because you would want a
one-shot merge from somebody else, you typically do not want to get
tags from there. This happens more often for people near the toplevel
but not limited to them. Mere mortals when pulling from each other do
not necessarily want to automatically get private anchor point tags
from the other person.
Often, "please pull" messages on the mailing list just provide two
pieces of information: a repo URL and a branch name; this is designed
to be easily cut&pasted at the end of a git fetch command line:
Linus, please pull from
git://git..../proj.git master
to get the following updates...
becomes:
$ git pull git://git..../proj.git master
In such a case, you do not want to automatically follow the other
person's tags.
One important aspect of Git is its distributed nature, which largely
means there is no inherent "upstream" or "downstream" in the system.
On the face of it, the above example might seem to indicate that the
tag namespace is owned by the upper echelon of people and that tags
only flow downwards, but that is not the case. It only shows that the
usage pattern determines who are interested in whose tags.
A one-shot pull is a sign that a commit history is now crossing the
boundary between one circle of people (e.g. "people who are primarily
interested in the networking part of the kernel") who may have their
own set of tags (e.g. "this is the third release candidate from the
networking group to be proposed for general consumption with 2.6.21
release") to another circle of people (e.g. "people who integrate
various subsystem improvements"). The latter are usually not
interested in the detailed tags used internally in the former group
(that is what "internal" means). That is why it is desirable not to
follow tags automatically in this case.
It may well be that among networking people, they may want to
exchange the tags internal to their group, but in that workflow they
are most likely tracking each other's progress by having
remote-tracking branches. Again, the heuristic to automatically
follow such tags is a good thing.
If you have imported some changes from another VCS and would like to
add tags for major releases of your work, it is useful to be able to
specify the date to embed inside of the tag object; such data in the
tag object affects, for example, the ordering of tags in the gitweb
interface.
To set the date used in future tag objects, set the environment
variable GIT_COMMITTER_DATE (see the later discussion of possible
values; the most common form is "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM").
For example:
$ GIT_COMMITTER_DATE="2006-10-02 10:31" git tag -s v1.0.1
The GIT_AUTHOR_DATE and GIT_COMMITTER_DATE environment variables
support the following date formats:
Git internal format
It is <unix-timestamp> <time-zone-offset>, where <unix-timestamp>
is the number of seconds since the UNIX epoch.
<time-zone-offset> is a positive or negative offset from UTC. For
example CET (which is 1 hour ahead of UTC) is +0100.
RFC 2822
The standard date format as described by RFC 2822, for example
Thu, 07 Apr 2005 22:13:13 +0200.
ISO 8601
Time and date specified by the ISO 8601 standard, for example
2005-04-07T22:13:13. The parser accepts a space instead of the T
character as well. Fractional parts of a second will be ignored,
for example 2005-04-07T22:13:13.019 will be treated as
2005-04-07T22:13:13.
Note
In addition, the date part is accepted in the following
formats: YYYY.MM.DD, MM/DD/YYYY and DD.MM.YYYY.
$GIT_DIR/TAG_EDITMSG
This file contains the message of an in-progress annotated tag.
If git tag exits due to an error before creating an annotated tag
then the tag message that has been provided by the user in an
editor session will be available in this file, but may be
overwritten by the next invocation of git tag.
Everything below this line in this section is selectively included
from the git-config(1) documentation. The content is the same as
what's found there:
tag.forceSignAnnotated
A boolean to specify whether annotated tags created should be GPG
signed. If --annotate is specified on the command line, it takes
precedence over this option.
tag.sort
This variable controls the sort ordering of tags when displayed
by git-tag. Without the --sort=<value> option provided, the value
of this variable will be used as the default.
tag.gpgSign
A boolean to specify whether all tags should be GPG signed. Use
of this option when running in an automated script can result in
a large number of tags being signed. It is therefore convenient
to use an agent to avoid typing your GPG passphrase several
times. Note that this option doesn't affect tag signing behavior
enabled by -u <keyid> or --local-user=<keyid> options.
When combining multiple --contains and --no-contains filters, only
references that contain at least one of the --contains commits and
contain none of the --no-contains commits are shown.
When combining multiple --merged and --no-merged filters, only
references that are reachable from at least one of the --merged
commits and from none of the --no-merged commits are shown.
git-check-ref-format(1). git-config(1).
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 2.53.0 2026-02-01 GIT-TAG(1)
NAME
git-tag - Create, list, delete or verify tags
SYNOPSIS
git tag [-a | -s | -u <key-id>] [-f] [-m <msg> | -F <file>] [-e]
[(--trailer <token>[(=|:)<value>])...]
<tagname> [<commit> | <object>]
git tag -d <tagname>...
git tag [-n[<num>]] -l [--contains <commit>] [--no-contains <commit>]
[--points-at <object>] [--column[=<options>] | --no-column]
[--create-reflog] [--sort=<key>] [--format=<format>]
[--merged <commit>] [--no-merged <commit>] [<pattern>...]
git tag -v [--format=<format>] <tagname>...
DESCRIPTION
Add a tag reference in refs/tags/, unless -d/-l/-v is given to
delete, list or verify tags.
Unless -f is given, the named tag must not yet exist.
If one of -a, -s, or -u <key-id> is passed, the command creates a tag
object, and requires a tag message. Unless -m <msg> or -F <file> is
given, an editor is started for the user to type in the tag message.
If -m <msg> or -F <file> or --trailer <token>[=<value>] is given and
-a, -s, and -u <key-id> are absent, -a is implied.
Otherwise, a tag reference that points directly at the given object
(i.e., a lightweight tag) is created.
A cryptographically signed tag object will be created when -s or -u
<key-id> is used. The signing backend (GPG, X.509, SSH, etc.) is
controlled by the gpg.format configuration variable, defaulting to
OpenPGP. When -u <key-id> is not used, the committer identity for the
current user is used to find the key for signing. The configuration
variable gpg.program is used to specify a custom signing binary.
Tag objects (created with -a, -s, or -u) are called "annotated" tags;
they contain a creation date, the tagger name and e-mail, a tagging
message, and an optional cryptographic signature. Whereas a
"lightweight" tag is simply a name for an object (usually a commit
object).
Annotated tags are meant for release while lightweight tags are meant
for private or temporary object labels. For this reason, some git
commands for naming objects (like git describe) will ignore
lightweight tags by default.
OPTIONS
-a, --annotate
Make an unsigned, annotated tag object
-s, --sign
Make a cryptographically signed tag, using the default signing
key. The signing backend used depends on the gpg.format
configuration variable. The default key is determined by the
backend. For GPG, it's based on the committer's email address,
while for SSH it may be a specific key file or agent identity.
See git-config(1).
--no-sign
Override tag.gpgSign configuration variable that is set to force
each and every tag to be signed.
-u <key-id>, --local-user=<key-id>
Make a cryptographically signed tag using the given key. The
format of the <key-id> and the backend used depend on the
gpg.format configuration variable. See git-config(1).
-f, --force
Replace an existing tag with the given name (instead of failing)
-d, --delete
Delete existing tags with the given names.
-v, --verify
Verify the cryptographic signature of the given tags.
-n<num>
<num> specifies how many lines from the annotation, if any, are
printed when using -l. Implies --list.
The default is not to print any annotation lines. If no number is
given to -n, only the first line is printed. If the tag is not
annotated, the commit message is displayed instead.
-l, --list
List tags. With optional <pattern>..., e.g. git tag --list
'v-*', list only the tags that match the pattern(s).
Running git tag without arguments also lists all tags. The
pattern is a shell wildcard (i.e., matched using fnmatch(3)).
Multiple patterns may be given; if any of them matches, the tag
is shown.
This option is implicitly supplied if any other list-like option
such as --contains is provided. See the documentation for each of
those options for details.
--sort=<key>
Sort based on the key given. Prefix - to sort in descending order
of the value. You may use the --sort=<key> option multiple times,
in which case the last <key> becomes the primary key. Also
supports "version:refname" or "v:refname" (tag names are treated
as versions). The "version:refname" sort order can also be
affected by the "versionsort.suffix" configuration variable. The
keys supported are the same as those in git for-each-ref. Sort
order defaults to the value configured for the tag.sort variable
if it exists, or lexicographic order otherwise. See git-
config(1).
--color[=<when>]
Respect any colors specified in the --format option. The <when>
field must be one of always, never, or auto (if <when> is absent,
behave as if always was given).
-i, --ignore-case
Sorting and filtering tags are case insensitive.
--omit-empty
Do not print a newline after formatted refs where the format
expands to the empty string.
--column[=<options>], --no-column
Display tag listing in columns. See configuration variable
column.tag for option syntax. --column and --no-column without
options are equivalent to always and never respectively.
This option is only applicable when listing tags without
annotation lines.
--contains [<commit>]
Only list tags which contain <commit> (HEAD if not specified).
Implies --list.
--no-contains [<commit>]
Only list tags which don't contain <commit> (HEAD if not
specified). Implies --list.
--merged [<commit>]
Only list tags whose commits are reachable from <commit> (HEAD if
not specified).
--no-merged [<commit>]
Only list tags whose commits are not reachable from <commit>
(HEAD if not specified).
--points-at [<object>]
Only list tags of <object> (HEAD if not specified). Implies
--list.
-m <msg>, --message=<msg>
Use <msg> (instead of prompting). If multiple -m options are
given, their values are concatenated as separate paragraphs.
Implies -a if none of -a, -s, or -u <key-id> is given.
-F <file>, --file=<file>
Take the tag message from <file>. Use - to read the message from
the standard input. Implies -a if none of -a, -s, or -u <key-id>
is given.
--trailer <token>[(=|:)<value>]
Specify a (<token>, <value>) pair that should be applied as a
trailer. (e.g. git tag --trailer "Custom-Key: value" will add a
"Custom-Key" trailer to the tag message.) The trailer.*
configuration variables (git-interpret-trailers(1)) can be used
to define if a duplicated trailer is omitted, where in the run of
trailers each trailer would appear, and other details. The
trailers can be extracted in git tag --list, using
--format="%(trailers)" placeholder.
-e, --edit
Let further edit the message taken from file with -F and command
line with -m.
--cleanup=<mode>
Set how the tag message is cleaned up. The <mode> can be one of
verbatim, whitespace and strip. The strip mode is default. The
verbatim mode does not change message at all, whitespace removes
just leading/trailing whitespace lines and strip removes both
whitespace and commentary.
--create-reflog
Create a reflog for the tag. To globally enable reflogs for tags,
see core.logAllRefUpdates in git-config(1). The negated form
--no-create-reflog only overrides an earlier --create-reflog, but
currently does not negate the setting of core.logAllRefUpdates.
--format=<format>
A string that interpolates %(fieldname) from a tag ref being
shown and the object it points at. The format is the same as that
of git-for-each-ref(1). When unspecified, defaults to
%(refname:strip=2).
<tagname>
The name of the tag to create, delete, or describe. The new tag
name must pass all checks defined by git-check-ref-format(1).
Some of these checks may restrict the characters allowed in a tag
name.
<commit>, <object>
The object that the new tag will refer to, usually a commit.
Defaults to HEAD.
CONFIGURATION
By default, git tag in sign-with-default mode (-s) will use your
committer identity (of the form Your Name <your@email.address>) to
find a key. If you want to use a different default key, you can
specify it in the repository configuration as follows:
[user]
signingKey = <key-id>
The signing backend can be chosen via the gpg.format configuration
variable, which defaults to openpgp. See git-config(1) for a list of
other supported formats.
The path to the program used for each signing backend can be
specified with the gpg.<format>.program configuration variable. For
the openpgp backend, gpg.program can be used as a synonym for
gpg.openpgp.program. See git-config(1) for details.
pager.tag is only respected when listing tags, i.e., when -l is used
or implied. The default is to use a pager.
See git-config(1) for more details and other configuration variables.
DISCUSSION
On Re-tagging
What should you do when you tag a wrong commit and you would want to
re-tag?
If you never pushed anything out, just re-tag it. Use -f to replace
the old one. And you're done.
But if you have pushed things out (or others could just read your
repository directly), then others will have already seen the old tag.
In that case you can do one of two things:
1. The sane thing. Just admit you screwed up, and use a different
name. Others have already seen one tag-name, and if you keep the
same name, you may be in the situation that two people both have
"version X", but they actually have different "X"'s. So just call
it "X.1" and be done with it.
2. The insane thing. You really want to call the new version "X"
too, even though others have already seen the old one. So just
use git tag -f again, as if you hadn't already published the old
one.
However, Git does not (and it should not) change tags behind users
back. So if somebody already got the old tag, doing a git pull on
your tree shouldn't just make them overwrite the old one.
If somebody got a release tag from you, you cannot just change the
tag for them by updating your own one. This is a big security issue,
in that people MUST be able to trust their tag-names. If you really
want to do the insane thing, you need to just fess up to it, and tell
people that you messed up. You can do that by making a very public
announcement saying:
Ok, I messed up, and I pushed out an earlier version tagged as X. I
then fixed something, and retagged the *fixed* tree as X again.
If you got the wrong tag, and want the new one, please delete
the old one and fetch the new one by doing:
git tag -d X
git fetch origin tag X
to get my updated tag.
You can test which tag you have by doing
git rev-parse X
which should return 0123456789abcdef.. if you have the new version.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Does this seem a bit complicated? It should be. There is no way that
it would be correct to just "fix" it automatically. People need to
know that their tags might have been changed.
On Automatic following
If you are following somebody else's tree, you are most likely using
remote-tracking branches (eg. refs/remotes/origin/master). You
usually want the tags from the other end.
On the other hand, if you are fetching because you would want a
one-shot merge from somebody else, you typically do not want to get
tags from there. This happens more often for people near the toplevel
but not limited to them. Mere mortals when pulling from each other do
not necessarily want to automatically get private anchor point tags
from the other person.
Often, "please pull" messages on the mailing list just provide two
pieces of information: a repo URL and a branch name; this is designed
to be easily cut&pasted at the end of a git fetch command line:
Linus, please pull from
git://git..../proj.git master
to get the following updates...
becomes:
$ git pull git://git..../proj.git master
In such a case, you do not want to automatically follow the other
person's tags.
One important aspect of Git is its distributed nature, which largely
means there is no inherent "upstream" or "downstream" in the system.
On the face of it, the above example might seem to indicate that the
tag namespace is owned by the upper echelon of people and that tags
only flow downwards, but that is not the case. It only shows that the
usage pattern determines who are interested in whose tags.
A one-shot pull is a sign that a commit history is now crossing the
boundary between one circle of people (e.g. "people who are primarily
interested in the networking part of the kernel") who may have their
own set of tags (e.g. "this is the third release candidate from the
networking group to be proposed for general consumption with 2.6.21
release") to another circle of people (e.g. "people who integrate
various subsystem improvements"). The latter are usually not
interested in the detailed tags used internally in the former group
(that is what "internal" means). That is why it is desirable not to
follow tags automatically in this case.
It may well be that among networking people, they may want to
exchange the tags internal to their group, but in that workflow they
are most likely tracking each other's progress by having
remote-tracking branches. Again, the heuristic to automatically
follow such tags is a good thing.
On Backdating Tags
If you have imported some changes from another VCS and would like to
add tags for major releases of your work, it is useful to be able to
specify the date to embed inside of the tag object; such data in the
tag object affects, for example, the ordering of tags in the gitweb
interface.
To set the date used in future tag objects, set the environment
variable GIT_COMMITTER_DATE (see the later discussion of possible
values; the most common form is "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM").
For example:
$ GIT_COMMITTER_DATE="2006-10-02 10:31" git tag -s v1.0.1
DATE FORMATS
The GIT_AUTHOR_DATE and GIT_COMMITTER_DATE environment variables
support the following date formats:
Git internal format
It is <unix-timestamp> <time-zone-offset>, where <unix-timestamp>
is the number of seconds since the UNIX epoch.
<time-zone-offset> is a positive or negative offset from UTC. For
example CET (which is 1 hour ahead of UTC) is +0100.
RFC 2822
The standard date format as described by RFC 2822, for example
Thu, 07 Apr 2005 22:13:13 +0200.
ISO 8601
Time and date specified by the ISO 8601 standard, for example
2005-04-07T22:13:13. The parser accepts a space instead of the T
character as well. Fractional parts of a second will be ignored,
for example 2005-04-07T22:13:13.019 will be treated as
2005-04-07T22:13:13.
Note
In addition, the date part is accepted in the following
formats: YYYY.MM.DD, MM/DD/YYYY and DD.MM.YYYY.
FILES
$GIT_DIR/TAG_EDITMSG
This file contains the message of an in-progress annotated tag.
If git tag exits due to an error before creating an annotated tag
then the tag message that has been provided by the user in an
editor session will be available in this file, but may be
overwritten by the next invocation of git tag.
CONFIGURATION
Everything below this line in this section is selectively included
from the git-config(1) documentation. The content is the same as
what's found there:
tag.forceSignAnnotated
A boolean to specify whether annotated tags created should be GPG
signed. If --annotate is specified on the command line, it takes
precedence over this option.
tag.sort
This variable controls the sort ordering of tags when displayed
by git-tag. Without the --sort=<value> option provided, the value
of this variable will be used as the default.
tag.gpgSign
A boolean to specify whether all tags should be GPG signed. Use
of this option when running in an automated script can result in
a large number of tags being signed. It is therefore convenient
to use an agent to avoid typing your GPG passphrase several
times. Note that this option doesn't affect tag signing behavior
enabled by -u <keyid> or --local-user=<keyid> options.
NOTES
When combining multiple --contains and --no-contains filters, only
references that contain at least one of the --contains commits and
contain none of the --no-contains commits are shown.
When combining multiple --merged and --no-merged filters, only
references that are reachable from at least one of the --merged
commits and from none of the --no-merged commits are shown.
SEE ALSO
git-check-ref-format(1). git-config(1).
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 2.53.0 2026-02-01 GIT-TAG(1)