Manual: git-commit-graph
GIT-COMMIT-GRAPH(1) Git Manual GIT-COMMIT-GRAPH(1)
NAME
git-commit-graph - Write and verify Git commit-graph files
SYNOPSIS
git commit-graph verify [--object-dir ] [--shallow] [--[no-]progress]
git commit-graph write [--object-dir ] [--append]
[--split[=]] [--reachable | --stdin-packs | --stdin-commits]
[--changed-paths] [--[no-]max-new-filters ] [--[no-]progress]
DESCRIPTION
Manage the serialized commit-graph file.
OPTIONS
--object-dir
Use given directory for the location of packfiles and commit-graph file. This parameter exists to
specify the location of an alternate that only has the objects directory, not a full .git
directory. The commit-graph file is expected to be in the /info directory and the packfiles
are expected to be in /pack. If the directory could not be made into an absolute path, or
does not match any known object directory, git commit-graph ... will exit with non-zero status.
--progress, --no-progress
Turn progress on/off explicitly. If neither is specified, progress is shown if standard error is
connected to a terminal.
COMMANDS
write
Write a commit-graph file based on the commits found in packfiles. If the config option
core.commitGraph is disabled, then this command will output a warning, then return success
without writing a commit-graph file.
With the --stdin-packs option, generate the new commit graph by walking objects only in the
specified pack-indexes. (Cannot be combined with --stdin-commits or --reachable.)
With the --stdin-commits option, generate the new commit graph by walking commits starting at the
commits specified in stdin as a list of OIDs in hex, one OID per line. OIDs that resolve to
non-commits (either directly, or by peeling tags) are silently ignored. OIDs that are malformed,
or do not exist generate an error. (Cannot be combined with --stdin-packs or --reachable.)
With the --reachable option, generate the new commit graph by walking commits starting at all
refs. (Cannot be combined with --stdin-commits or --stdin-packs.)
With the --append option, include all commits that are present in the existing commit-graph file.
With the --changed-paths option, compute and write information about the paths changed between a
commit and its first parent. This operation can take a while on large repositories. It provides
significant performance gains for getting history of a directory or a file with git log --
. If this option is given, future commit-graph writes will automatically assume that this
option was intended. Use --no-changed-paths to stop storing this data. --changed-paths is
implied by config commitGraph.changedPaths=true.
With the --max-new-filters= option, generate at most n new Bloom filters (if --changed-paths
is specified). If n is -1, no limit is enforced. Only commits present in the new layer count
against this limit. To retroactively compute Bloom filters over earlier layers, it is advised to
use --split=replace. Overrides the commitGraph.maxNewFilters configuration.
With the --split[=] option, write the commit-graph as a chain of multiple commit-graph
files stored in /info/commit-graphs. Commit-graph layers are merged based on the strategy
and other splitting options. The new commits not already in the commit-graph are added in a new
"tip" file. This file is merged with the existing file if the following merge conditions are met:
• If --split=no-merge is specified, a merge is never performed, and the remaining options are
ignored. --split=replace overwrites the existing chain with a new one. A bare --split defers
to the remaining options. (Note that merging a chain of commit graphs replaces the existing
chain with a length-1 chain where the first and only incremental holds the entire graph).
• If --size-multiple= is not specified, let X equal 2. If the new tip file would have N
commits and the previous tip has M commits and X times N is greater than M, instead merge the
two files into a single file.
• If --max-commits= is specified with M a positive integer, and the new tip file would have
more than M commits, then instead merge the new tip with the previous tip.
Finally, if --expire-time= is not specified, let datetime be the current time.
After writing the split commit-graph, delete all unused commit-graph whose modified times are
older than datetime.
verify
Read the commit-graph file and verify its contents against the object database. Used to check for
corrupted data.
With the --shallow option, only check the tip commit-graph file in a chain of split
commit-graphs.
EXAMPLES
• Write a commit-graph file for the packed commits in your local .git directory.
$ git commit-graph write
• Write a commit-graph file, extending the current commit-graph file using commits in .
$ echo | git commit-graph write --stdin-packs
• Write a commit-graph file containing all reachable commits.
$ git show-ref -s | git commit-graph write --stdin-commits
• Write a commit-graph file containing all commits in the current commit-graph file along with
those reachable from HEAD.
$ git rev-parse HEAD | git commit-graph write --stdin-commits --append
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:
commitGraph.generationVersion
Specifies the type of generation number version to use when writing or reading the commit-graph
file. If version 1 is specified, then the corrected commit dates will not be written or read.
Defaults to 2.
commitGraph.maxNewFilters
Specifies the default value for the --max-new-filters option of git commit-graph write (c.f.,
git-commit-graph(1)).
commitGraph.changedPaths
If true, then git commit-graph write will compute and write changed-path Bloom filters by
default, equivalent to passing --changed-paths. If false or unset, changed-paths Bloom filters
will be written during git commit-graph write only if the filters already exist in the current
commit-graph file. This matches the default behavior of git commit-graph write without any
--[no-]changed-paths option. To rewrite a commit-graph file without any filters, use the
--no-changed-paths option. Command-line option --[no-]changed-paths always takes precedence over
this configuration. Defaults to unset.
commitGraph.readChangedPaths
Deprecated. Equivalent to commitGraph.changedPathsVersion=-1 if true, and
commitGraph.changedPathsVersion=0 if false. (If commitGraph.changedPathVersion is also set,
commitGraph.changedPathsVersion takes precedence.)
commitGraph.changedPathsVersion
Specifies the version of the changed-path Bloom filters that Git will read and write. May be -1,
0, 1, or 2. Note that values greater than 1 may be incompatible with older versions of Git which
do not yet understand those versions. Use caution when operating in a mixed-version environment.
Defaults to -1.
If -1, Git will use the version of the changed-path Bloom filters in the repository, defaulting
to 1 if there are none.
If 0, Git will not read any Bloom filters, and will write version 1 Bloom filters when instructed
to write.
If 1, Git will only read version 1 Bloom filters, and will write version 1 Bloom filters.
If 2, Git will only read version 2 Bloom filters, and will write version 2 Bloom filters.
See git-commit-graph(1) for more information.
FILE FORMAT
see gitformat-commit-graph(5).
GIT
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 2.53.0 03/02/2026 GIT-COMMIT-GRAPH(1)