Git revisions syntax

Skill narenaryan/agent-skills/skills/git/git-revisions-syntax

Byte-sized agent skills for giving advanced knowledge to AI agents

Install

npx -y skills add narenaryan/agent-skills --skill git-revisions-syntax

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One thing to look at

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What its author says it does

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Use when selecting commits, ranges, or historical refs in git — covers ^, ~, .., ..., @{N}, @{time}, --not, and pickaxe content selectors

SKILL.md

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Git Revision Syntax

Single Commits

Syntax	Meaning
`abc123`	SHA prefix (≥4, unambiguous)
`HEAD` / `@`	current commit
`HEAD^`	first parent
`HEAD^2`	second parent (merge's other side)
`HEAD~N`	walk N steps along first parent
`HEAD~3^2`	chained: grandparent's merge sibling
`HEAD@{2}`	2 reflog entries ago
`HEAD@{yesterday}` / `@{2.weeks.ago}`	reflog by time
`@{-1}`	previously checked-out branch
`@{u}` / `@{push}`	upstream / push target
`tag^{}`	deref annotated tag to commit
`:/fix typo`	newest commit whose msg matches regex

^N picks parent N of one commit (merge-aware). ~N walks N first-parent steps. Different.

Ranges

Syntax	Meaning
`A..B`	in B, not A
`A...B`	symmetric diff (either but not both)
`^A B` / `B --not A`	same as `A..B`
`A B ^C`	in A or B, not C

git log origin/main..HEAD              # unpushed
git log --left-right main...feature    # side-marked
git log HEAD --not release/*

Content-Based Selectors

git log -S"token"                  # commits where literal token count changed
git log -S"pat" --pickaxe-regex
git log -G"regex"                  # commits touching any matching line
git log -L :funcName:file.js       # evolution of a function
git log -L 10,20:file.js           # evolution of line range

-S = added/removed detection; -G = any line touching pattern.

Plumbing

git rev-parse HEAD~3               # resolve to full SHA
git merge-base A B                 # nearest common ancestor
git name-rev <sha>                 # which branch/tag contains it

Pitfalls

Reflog selectors (@{N}, @{time}) are local, expire (~90 days).
HEAD^ in zsh/PowerShell needs quoting.
A..B is empty if B is an ancestor of A — probably want B..A.