Git - Lalit Magantihttps://lalitm.com/tags/git/2026-07-14T01:51:47ZLalit MagantiHugo -- gohugo.ioThe git history command deserves more attentionhttps://lalitm.com/post/git-history/2026-07-13T19:40:00+01:002026-07-13T19:40:00+01:00<p>Working with lots of changes in parallel on git can be painful. You end up
juggling branches and commits, and running scary <code>rebase -i</code> commands that can
leave your tree in a half-broken state if you so much as sneeze.</p>
<p><a href="https://github.com/jj-vcs/jj"><code>jj</code></a>, an alternative to <code>git</code>, gets discussed a
lot these days (<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48692083">1</a>,
<a href="https://lobste.rs/s/beqyuc/evan_s_jujutsu_tutorial">2</a>,
<a href="https://lobste.rs/s/fg3sgh/jj_tui_terminal_user_interface_jujutsu">3</a>,
<a href="https://lobste.rs/s/27dxjg/petty_reason_we_didn_t_end_up_using_jj">4</a>) and is
often pitched as a solution. While I’m very sold on the <em>problems</em> <code>jj</code> is
trying to solve, the way it solves them hasn’t quite hit home with me. Every 3
months, for the last 1.5 years, I try it out for a few days, really trying to
make it part of my workflow but eventually I give up and go back to git.<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">1</a></sup></p>
<p>That’s where <code>git history</code> comes in. It’s an <strong>experimental</strong>
<a href="https://git-scm.com/docs/git-history">command</a> that arrived across two
releases,
<a href="https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/RelNotes/2.54.0.adoc">2.54</a>
(April, <code>reword</code> and <code>split</code> subcommands) and
<a href="https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/RelNotes/2.55.0.adoc">2.55</a>
(June, <code>fixup</code> subcommand). It got a flurry of attention on each release day,
and then, as far as I can tell, not much community discussion since. Which is a
shame, because IMO it already delivers several of the benefits people tout for
<code>jj</code> without needing to switch your whole workflow. And the cool thing is that
it’s part of the core git distribution, so you can try it without installing
anything.</p>