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How to display git branches as a tree in CLI
An interesting feature of graphical tools for git is showing a repository tree with all the branches. In this article, I will show how to achieve something similar in the command line.
With the alias I'm using, I can run
git tree and see something like:* 8dc4b3c (HEAD -> main, origin/main, origin/HEAD) add esbuild change
* 4276744 add esbuild logo
* 2dcfa82 import html in esbuild
| * 3d05f80 (solution) script
| * d11dcad update script to cover all 3 gettign started sections
|/
* 817f5bb starting poing
| * de5c7c6 (final-state) move to mode non
|/
* 800213b (origin/final-state) add contact-list component
* 97c8010 whole headerIt's pretty much everything I need to have an overview of the project, for example:
git fetch --all --prune, I can see what is happening on the remotecherry-pick
The command that is used, it's
git log with some additional flags:$ git log --oneline --graph --decorate --allYou could type it every time you need it, but for me, it's an everyday command & I hardly ever want to run it differently - it's always the same one, so it makes sense to define an alias for it.
For defining alias, you can use your
~/.gitconfig. If the file is missing, you can create it. It's the same file where git saves your name & email, so most likely, you have at least something like:[user]
email = your@email
name = Your Nameafter those lines, you can add:
[alias]
tree = log --oneline --graph --decorate --allIf you already have some aliases, you only need to add the
tree = ... to the alias section.Then, you will have
git tree available.We have seen how to set up a
git tree alias to improve your git CLI experience.