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Git Notes: Git's coolest, most unloved­ feature (2022)

(tylercipriani.com)
577 points Delgan | 4 comments | 22 Jun 25 09:14 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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827a ◴[22 Jun 25 15:46 UTC] No.44347847[source]▶
Why would I choose to stash information like this in the git notes, versus just appending it to the commit message itself?
replies(1): >>44347884 #
1. zygentoma ◴[22 Jun 25 15:50 UTC] No.44347884[source]▶
Because you would not want to write the whole git history starting from the commit you want to stash this info one everytime you want to stash additional info …

Appending information to the commit itself creates a new commit and all the commits that are based on the commit will also have to change consequently.

replies(1): >>44347903 #
2. 827a ◴[22 Jun 25 15:52 UTC] No.44347903[source]▶
Ah; so notes don't impact the commit hash? That is a solid reason.
replies(1): >>44348364 #
3. cesarb ◴[22 Jun 25 16:55 UTC] No.44348364[source]▶
Yeah, git notes are AFAIK stashed into their own hidden branch, referencing the original commit by its hash. That is, the git note points to the commit, not the opposite.
replies(1): >>44348598 #
4. Izkata ◴[22 Jun 25 17:25 UTC] No.44348598{3}[source]▶
Kind of. The structure is the same and you can check it out if you want, but it's actually a 3rd directory under "refs" - the other two being "heads" (branches) and "tags". That avoids special-casing with trying to hide branches or conflicting with a branch name a user might make.