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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | CONFIGURATION | DISCUSSION | DATE FORMATS | FILES | NOTES | SEE ALSO | GIT | COLOPHON |
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GIT-TAG(1) Git Manual GIT-TAG(1)
git-tag - Create, list, delete or verify a tag object signed with
GPG
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 GnuPG signed tag object will be created when -s or -u <key-id>
is used. When -u <key-id> is not used, the committer identity for
the current user is used to find the GnuPG key for signing. The
configuration variable gpg.program is used to specify custom GnuPG
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 GnuPG 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 GPG-signed tag, using the default e-mail address’s key.
The default behavior of tag GPG-signing is controlled by
tag.gpgSign configuration variable if it exists, or disabled
otherwise. 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 GPG-signed tag, using the given key.
-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 GPG signature of the given tag names.
-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 the specified commit (HEAD if not
specified). Implies --list.
--no-contains [<commit>]
Only list tags which don’t contain the specified commit (HEAD
if not specified). Implies --list.
--merged [<commit>]
Only list tags whose commits are reachable from the specified
commit (HEAD if not specified).
--no-merged [<commit>]
Only list tags whose commits are not reachable from the
specified commit (HEAD if not specified).
--points-at <object>
Only list tags of the given object (HEAD if not specified).
Implies --list.
-m <msg>, --message=<msg>
Use the given tag message (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 the given 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
The message taken from file with -F and command line with -m
are usually used as the tag message unmodified. This option
lets you further edit the message taken from these sources.
--cleanup=<mode>
This option sets 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 = <gpg-key-id>
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).
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
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.
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
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
man-pages@man7.org
Git 2.51.0.rc1 2025-08-07 GIT-TAG(1)
Pages that refer to this page: git(1), git-config(1), git-describe(1), git-merge(1), git-replace(1), git-var(1), giteveryday(7), gittutorial-2(7), gittutorial(7)
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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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