-q, --quiet
This is passed to both underlying git-fetch to squelch
reporting of during transfer, and underlying git-merge to
squelch output during merging.
-v, --verbose
Pass --verbose to git-fetch and git-merge.
--[no-]recurse-submodules[=yes|on-demand|no]
This option controls if new commits of populated submodules
should be fetched, and if the working trees of active
submodules should be updated, too (see git-fetch(1),
git-config(1) and gitmodules(5)).
If the checkout is done via rebase, local submodule commits
are rebased as well.
If the update is done via merge, the submodule conflicts are
resolved and checked out.
Options related to merging
--commit, --no-commit
Perform the merge and commit the result. This option can be
used to override --no-commit.
With --no-commit perform the merge and stop just before
creating a merge commit, to give the user a chance to inspect
and further tweak the merge result before committing.
Note that fast-forward updates do not create a merge commit
and therefore there is no way to stop those merges with
--no-commit. Thus, if you want to ensure your branch is not
changed or updated by the merge command, use --no-ff with
--no-commit.
--edit, -e, --no-edit
Invoke an editor before committing successful mechanical
merge to further edit the auto-generated merge message, so
that the user can explain and justify the merge. The
--no-edit option can be used to accept the auto-generated
message (this is generally discouraged).
Older scripts may depend on the historical behaviour of not
allowing the user to edit the merge log message. They will
see an editor opened when they run git merge. To make it
easier to adjust such scripts to the updated behaviour, the
environment variable GIT_MERGE_AUTOEDIT can be set to no at
the beginning of them.
--cleanup=<mode>
This option determines how the merge message will be cleaned
up before committing. See git-commit(1) for more details. In
addition, if the <mode> is given a value of scissors,
scissors will be appended to MERGE_MSG before being passed on
to the commit machinery in the case of a merge conflict.
--ff, --no-ff, --ff-only
Specifies how a merge is handled when the merged-in history
is already a descendant of the current history. --ff is the
default unless merging an annotated (and possibly signed) tag
that is not stored in its natural place in the refs/tags/
hierarchy, in which case --no-ff is assumed.
With --ff, when possible resolve the merge as a fast-forward
(only update the branch pointer to match the merged branch;
do not create a merge commit). When not possible (when the
merged-in history is not a descendant of the current
history), create a merge commit.
With --no-ff, create a merge commit in all cases, even when
the merge could instead be resolved as a fast-forward.
With --ff-only, resolve the merge as a fast-forward when
possible. When not possible, refuse to merge and exit with a
non-zero status.
-S[<keyid>], --gpg-sign[=<keyid>], --no-gpg-sign
GPG-sign the resulting merge commit. The keyid argument is
optional and defaults to the committer identity; if
specified, it must be stuck to the option without a space.
--no-gpg-sign is useful to countermand both commit.gpgSign
configuration variable, and earlier --gpg-sign.
--log[=<n>], --no-log
In addition to branch names, populate the log message with
one-line descriptions from at most <n> actual commits that
are being merged. See also git-fmt-merge-msg(1).
With --no-log do not list one-line descriptions from the
actual commits being merged.
--signoff, --no-signoff
Add a Signed-off-by trailer by the committer at the end of
the commit log message. The meaning of a signoff depends on
the project to which you're committing. For example, it may
certify that the committer has the rights to submit the work
under the project's license or agrees to some contributor
representation, such as a Developer Certificate of Origin.
(See http://developercertificate.org
The --no-signoff option can be used to countermand an earlier
--signoff option on the command line.
--stat, -n, --no-stat
Show a diffstat at the end of the merge. The diffstat is also
controlled by the configuration option merge.stat.
With -n or --no-stat do not show a diffstat at the end of the
merge.
--squash, --no-squash
Produce the working tree and index state as if a real merge
happened (except for the merge information), but do not
actually make a commit, move the HEAD, or record
$GIT_DIR/MERGE_HEAD (to cause the next git commit command to
create a merge commit). This allows you to create a single
commit on top of the current branch whose effect is the same
as merging another branch (or more in case of an octopus).
With --no-squash perform the merge and commit the result.
This option can be used to override --squash.
With --squash, --commit is not allowed, and will fail.
--no-verify
This option bypasses the pre-merge and commit-msg hooks. See
also githooks(5).
-s <strategy>, --strategy=<strategy>
Use the given merge strategy; can be supplied more than once
to specify them in the order they should be tried. If there
is no -s option, a built-in list of strategies is used
instead (git merge-recursive when merging a single head, git
merge-octopus otherwise).
-X <option>, --strategy-option=<option>
Pass merge strategy specific option through to the merge
strategy.
--verify-signatures, --no-verify-signatures
Verify that the tip commit of the side branch being merged is
signed with a valid key, i.e. a key that has a valid uid: in
the default trust model, this means the signing key has been
signed by a trusted key. If the tip commit of the side branch
is not signed with a valid key, the merge is aborted.
--summary, --no-summary
Synonyms to --stat and --no-stat; these are deprecated and
will be removed in the future.
--autostash, --no-autostash
Automatically create a temporary stash entry before the
operation begins, record it in the special ref
MERGE_AUTOSTASH and apply it after the operation ends. This
means that you can run the operation on a dirty worktree.
However, use with care: the final stash application after a
successful merge might result in non-trivial conflicts.
--allow-unrelated-histories
By default, git merge command refuses to merge histories that
do not share a common ancestor. This option can be used to
override this safety when merging histories of two projects
that started their lives independently. As that is a very
rare occasion, no configuration variable to enable this by
default exists and will not be added.
-r, --rebase[=false|true|merges|preserve|interactive]
When true, rebase the current branch on top of the upstream
branch after fetching. If there is a remote-tracking branch
corresponding to the upstream branch and the upstream branch
was rebased since last fetched, the rebase uses that
information to avoid rebasing non-local changes.
When set to merges, rebase using git rebase --rebase-merges
so that the local merge commits are included in the rebase
(see git-rebase(1) for details).
When set to preserve (deprecated in favor of merges), rebase
with the --preserve-merges option passed to git rebase so
that locally created merge commits will not be flattened.
When false, merge the upstream branch into the current
branch.
When interactive, enable the interactive mode of rebase.
See pull.rebase, branch.<name>.rebase and
branch.autoSetupRebase in git-config(1) if you want to make
git pull always use --rebase instead of merging.
Note
This is a potentially dangerous mode of operation. It
rewrites history, which does not bode well when you
published that history already. Do not use this option
unless you have read git-rebase(1) carefully.
--no-rebase
Override earlier --rebase.
Options related to fetching
--all
Fetch all remotes.
-a, --append
Append ref names and object names of fetched refs to the
existing contents of .git/FETCH_HEAD. Without this option old
data in .git/FETCH_HEAD will be overwritten.
--atomic
Use an atomic transaction to update local refs. Either all
refs are updated, or on error, no refs are updated.
--depth=<depth>
Limit fetching to the specified number of commits from the
tip of each remote branch history. If fetching to a shallow
repository created by git clone with --depth=<depth> option
(see git-clone(1)), deepen or shorten the history to the
specified number of commits. Tags for the deepened commits
are not fetched.
--deepen=<depth>
Similar to --depth, except it specifies the number of commits
from the current shallow boundary instead of from the tip of
each remote branch history.
--shallow-since=<date>
Deepen or shorten the history of a shallow repository to
include all reachable commits after <date>.
--shallow-exclude=<revision>
Deepen or shorten the history of a shallow repository to
exclude commits reachable from a specified remote branch or
tag. This option can be specified multiple times.
--unshallow
If the source repository is complete, convert a shallow
repository to a complete one, removing all the limitations
imposed by shallow repositories.
If the source repository is shallow, fetch as much as
possible so that the current repository has the same history
as the source repository.
--update-shallow
By default when fetching from a shallow repository, git fetch
refuses refs that require updating .git/shallow. This option
updates .git/shallow and accept such refs.
--negotiation-tip=<commit|glob>
By default, Git will report, to the server, commits reachable
from all local refs to find common commits in an attempt to
reduce the size of the to-be-received packfile. If specified,
Git will only report commits reachable from the given tips.
This is useful to speed up fetches when the user knows which
local ref is likely to have commits in common with the
upstream ref being fetched.
This option may be specified more than once; if so, Git will
report commits reachable from any of the given commits.
The argument to this option may be a glob on ref names, a
ref, or the (possibly abbreviated) SHA-1 of a commit.
Specifying a glob is equivalent to specifying this option
multiple times, one for each matching ref name.
See also the fetch.negotiationAlgorithm and push.negotiate
configuration variables documented in git-config(1), and the
--negotiate-only option below.
--negotiate-only
Do not fetch anything from the server, and instead print the
ancestors of the provided --negotiation-tip=* arguments,
which we have in common with the server.
Internally this is used to implement the push.negotiate
option, see git-config(1).
--dry-run
Show what would be done, without making any changes.
-f, --force
When git fetch is used with <src>:<dst> refspec it may refuse
to update the local branch as discussed in the <refspec> part
of the git-fetch(1) documentation. This option overrides that
check.
-k, --keep
Keep downloaded pack.
--prefetch
Modify the configured refspec to place all refs into the
refs/prefetch/ namespace. See the prefetch task in
git-maintenance(1).
-p, --prune
Before fetching, remove any remote-tracking references that
no longer exist on the remote. Tags are not subject to
pruning if they are fetched only because of the default tag
auto-following or due to a --tags option. However, if tags
are fetched due to an explicit refspec (either on the command
line or in the remote configuration, for example if the
remote was cloned with the --mirror option), then they are
also subject to pruning. Supplying --prune-tags is a
shorthand for providing the tag refspec.
--no-tags
By default, tags that point at objects that are downloaded
from the remote repository are fetched and stored locally.
This option disables this automatic tag following. The
default behavior for a remote may be specified with the
remote.<name>.tagOpt setting. See git-config(1).
--refmap=<refspec>
When fetching refs listed on the command line, use the
specified refspec (can be given more than once) to map the
refs to remote-tracking branches, instead of the values of
remote.*.fetch configuration variables for the remote
repository. Providing an empty <refspec> to the --refmap
option causes Git to ignore the configured refspecs and rely
entirely on the refspecs supplied as command-line arguments.
See section on "Configured Remote-tracking Branches" for
details.
-t, --tags
Fetch all tags from the remote (i.e., fetch remote tags
refs/tags/* into local tags with the same name), in addition
to whatever else would otherwise be fetched. Using this
option alone does not subject tags to pruning, even if
--prune is used (though tags may be pruned anyway if they are
also the destination of an explicit refspec; see --prune).
-j, --jobs=<n>
Number of parallel children to be used for all forms of
fetching.
If the --multiple option was specified, the different remotes
will be fetched in parallel. If multiple submodules are
fetched, they will be fetched in parallel. To control them
independently, use the config settings fetch.parallel and
submodule.fetchJobs (see git-config(1)).
Typically, parallel recursive and multi-remote fetches will
be faster. By default fetches are performed sequentially, not
in parallel.
--set-upstream
If the remote is fetched successfully, add upstream
(tracking) reference, used by argument-less git-pull(1) and
other commands. For more information, see branch.<name>.merge
and branch.<name>.remote in git-config(1).
--upload-pack <upload-pack>
When given, and the repository to fetch from is handled by
git fetch-pack, --exec=<upload-pack> is passed to the command
to specify non-default path for the command run on the other
end.
--progress
Progress status is reported on the standard error stream by
default when it is attached to a terminal, unless -q is
specified. This flag forces progress status even if the
standard error stream is not directed to a terminal.
-o <option>, --server-option=<option>
Transmit the given string to the server when communicating
using protocol version 2. The given string must not contain a
NUL or LF character. The server's handling of server options,
including unknown ones, is server-specific. When multiple
--server-option=<option> are given, they are all sent to the
other side in the order listed on the command line.
--show-forced-updates
By default, git checks if a branch is force-updated during
fetch. This can be disabled through fetch.showForcedUpdates,
but the --show-forced-updates option guarantees this check
occurs. See git-config(1).
--no-show-forced-updates
By default, git checks if a branch is force-updated during
fetch. Pass --no-show-forced-updates or set
fetch.showForcedUpdates to false to skip this check for
performance reasons. If used during git-pull the --ff-only
option will still check for forced updates before attempting
a fast-forward update. See git-config(1).
-4, --ipv4
Use IPv4 addresses only, ignoring IPv6 addresses.
-6, --ipv6
Use IPv6 addresses only, ignoring IPv4 addresses.
<repository>
The "remote" repository that is the source of a fetch or pull
operation. This parameter can be either a URL (see the
section GIT URLS below) or the name of a remote (see the
section REMOTES below).
<refspec>
Specifies which refs to fetch and which local refs to update.
When no <refspec>s appear on the command line, the refs to
fetch are read from remote.<repository>.fetch variables
instead (see the section "CONFIGURED REMOTE-TRACKING
BRANCHES" in git-fetch(1)).
The format of a <refspec> parameter is an optional plus +,
followed by the source <src>, followed by a colon :, followed
by the destination ref <dst>. The colon can be omitted when
<dst> is empty. <src> is typically a ref, but it can also be
a fully spelled hex object name.
A <refspec> may contain a * in its <src> to indicate a simple
pattern match. Such a refspec functions like a glob that
matches any ref with the same prefix. A pattern <refspec>
must have a * in both the <src> and <dst>. It will map refs
to the destination by replacing the * with the contents
matched from the source.
If a refspec is prefixed by ^, it will be interpreted as a
negative refspec. Rather than specifying which refs to fetch
or which local refs to update, such a refspec will instead
specify refs to exclude. A ref will be considered to match if
it matches at least one positive refspec, and does not match
any negative refspec. Negative refspecs can be useful to
restrict the scope of a pattern refspec so that it will not
include specific refs. Negative refspecs can themselves be
pattern refspecs. However, they may only contain a <src> and
do not specify a <dst>. Fully spelled out hex object names
are also not supported.
tag <tag> means the same as refs/tags/<tag>:refs/tags/<tag>;
it requests fetching everything up to the given tag.
The remote ref that matches <src> is fetched, and if <dst> is
not an empty string, an attempt is made to update the local
ref that matches it.
Whether that update is allowed without --force depends on the
ref namespace it's being fetched to, the type of object being
fetched, and whether the update is considered to be a
fast-forward. Generally, the same rules apply for fetching as
when pushing, see the <refspec>... section of git-push(1)
for what those are. Exceptions to those rules particular to
git fetch are noted below.
Until Git version 2.20, and unlike when pushing with
git-push(1), any updates to refs/tags/* would be accepted
without + in the refspec (or --force). When fetching, we
promiscuously considered all tag updates from a remote to be
forced fetches. Since Git version 2.20, fetching to update
refs/tags/* works the same way as when pushing. I.e. any
updates will be rejected without + in the refspec (or
--force).
Unlike when pushing with git-push(1), any updates outside of
refs/{tags,heads}/* will be accepted without + in the refspec
(or --force), whether that's swapping e.g. a tree object for
a blob, or a commit for another commit that's doesn't have
the previous commit as an ancestor etc.
Unlike when pushing with git-push(1), there is no
configuration which'll amend these rules, and nothing like a
pre-fetch hook analogous to the pre-receive hook.
As with pushing with git-push(1), all of the rules described
above about what's not allowed as an update can be overridden
by adding an the optional leading + to a refspec (or using
--force command line option). The only exception to this is
that no amount of forcing will make the refs/heads/*
namespace accept a non-commit object.
Note
When the remote branch you want to fetch is known to be
rewound and rebased regularly, it is expected that its
new tip will not be descendant of its previous tip (as
stored in your remote-tracking branch the last time you
fetched). You would want to use the + sign to indicate
non-fast-forward updates will be needed for such
branches. There is no way to determine or declare that a
branch will be made available in a repository with this
behavior; the pulling user simply must know this is the
expected usage pattern for a branch.
Note
There is a difference between listing multiple <refspec>
directly on git pull command line and having multiple
remote.<repository>.fetch entries in your configuration
for a <repository> and running a git pull command without
any explicit <refspec> parameters. <refspec>s listed
explicitly on the command line are always merged into the
current branch after fetching. In other words, if you
list more than one remote ref, git pull will create an
Octopus merge. On the other hand, if you do not list any
explicit <refspec> parameter on the command line, git
pull will fetch all the <refspec>s it finds in the
remote.<repository>.fetch configuration and merge only
the first <refspec> found into the current branch. This
is because making an Octopus from remote refs is rarely
done, while keeping track of multiple remote heads in
one-go by fetching more than one is often useful.
