When working with many commits, it helps to tag specific commits with custom names so they’re easier to refer to later.
Git lets you tag commits with names, making them easy to reference later. This is useful when you want to mark specific commits -- such as releases or key milestones (e.g., v1.0 or v2.1). Using tags to refer to commits is much more convenient than using SHA hashes. In the diagram below, v1.0 and interim are tags.
A tag stays fixed to the commit. Unlike branch refs or HEAD, tags do not move automatically as new commits are made. As you see below, after adding a new commit, tags stay in the previous commits while master←HEAD have moved to the new commit.
Git supports two kinds of tags:
- A lightweight tag is just a ref that points directly to a commit, like a branch that doesn’t move.
- An annotated tag is a full Git object that stores a reference to a commit along with metadata such as the tagger’s name, date, and a message.
Annotated tags are generally preferred for versioning and public releases, while lightweight tags are often used for less formal purposes, such as marking a commit for your own reference.
0 Preparation: fork and clone the samplerepo-preferences. Use the cloned repo in your computer for the following steps.
1 Add a lightweight tag to the current commit as v1.0:
git tag v1.0
2 Verify the tag was added. To view tags:
git tag
v1.0
To view tags in the context of the revision graph:
git log --oneline --decorate
507bb74 (HEAD -> master, tag: v1.0, origin/master, origin/HEAD) Add donuts
de97f08 Add cake
5e6733a Add bananas
3398df7 Add food.txt
3 Use the tag to refer to the commit e.g., git show v1.0 should show the changes in the tagged commit.
4 Add an annotated tag to an earlier commit. The example below adds a tag v0.9 to the commit HEAD~2 with the message First beta release. The -a switch tells Git this is an annotated tag.
git tag -a v0.9 HEAD~2 -m "First beta release"
5 Check the new annotated tag. While both types of tags appear similarly in the revision graph, the show command on an annotated tag will show the details of the tag and the details of the commit it points to.
git show v0.9
tag v0.9
Tagger: ... <...@...>
Date: Sun Jun ...
First beta release
commit ....999087124af... (tag: v0.9)
Author: ... <...@...>
Date: Sat Jun ...
Add figs to fruits.txt
diff --git a/fruits.txt b/fruits.txt
index a8a0a01..7d0a594 100644
# rest of the diff goes here
Right-click on the commit (in the graphical revision graph) you want to tag and choose Tag….
Specify the tag name e.g. v1.0 and click Add Tag.
Configure tag properties in the next dialog and press Add. For example, you can choose whether to make it a lightweight tag or an annotated tag (default).
Tags will appear as labels in the revision graph, as seen below. To see the details of an annotated tag, you need to use the menu indicated in the screenshot.
If you need to change what a tag points to, you must delete the old one and create a new tag with the same name. This is because tags are designed to be fixed references to a specific commit, and there is no built-in mechanism to 'move' a tag.
Move the v1.0 tag to the commit HEAD~1, by deleting it first and creating it again at the destination commit.
Delete the previous v1.0 tag by using the -d switch. Add it again to the other commit, as before.
git tag -d v1.0
git tag v1.0 HEAD~1
The same dialog used to add a tag can be used to delete and even move a tag. Note that the 'moving' here translates to deleting and re-adding behind the scene.
Tags are different from commit messages, in purpose and in form. A commit message is a description of the commit that is part of the commit itself. A tags is a short name for a commit, which you can use to address a commit.
Pushing commits to a remote does not push tags automatically. You need to push tags specifically.
Push tags you created earlier to the remote.
You can go to your remote on GitHub link https://github.com/{USER}/{REPO}/tags (e.g., https://github.com/johndoe/samplerepo-prefrences/tags) to verify the tag is present there.
Note how GitHub assumes these tags are meant as releases, and automatically provides zip and tar.gz archives of the repo (as at that tag).
1 Push a specific tag in the local repo to the remote (e.g., v1.0) using the git push <origin> <tag-name> command.
git push origin v1.0
In addition to verifying the tag's presence via GitHub, you can also use the following command to list the tags presently in the remote.
git ls-remote --tags origin
2 Delete a tag in the remote, using the git push --delete <remote> <tag-name> command.
git push --delete origin v1.0
3 Push all tags to the remote repo, using the git push <remote> --tags command.
git push origin --tags
To push a specific tag, use the following menu:
To push all tags, you can tick the Push all tags option when pushing commits:
