man > GIT-LS-REMOTE

GIT-LS-REMOTE(1)                             Git Manual                             GIT-LS-REMOTE(1)

NAME
       git-ls-remote - List references in a remote repository

SYNOPSIS
       git ls-remote [--heads] [--tags] [--refs] [--upload-pack=<exec>]
                     [-q | --quiet] [--exit-code] [--get-url] [--sort=<key>]
                     [--symref] [<repository> [<patterns>...]]


DESCRIPTION
       Displays references available in a remote repository along with the associated commit IDs.

OPTIONS
       -h, --heads, -t, --tags
           Limit to only refs/heads and refs/tags, respectively. These options are not mutually
           exclusive; when given both, references stored in refs/heads and refs/tags are displayed.
           Note that git ls-remote -h used without anything else on the command line gives help,
           consistent with other git subcommands.

       --refs
           Do not show peeled tags or pseudorefs like HEAD in the output.

       -q, --quiet
           Do not print remote URL to stderr.

       --upload-pack=<exec>
           Specify the full path of git-upload-pack on the remote host. This allows listing
           references from repositories accessed via SSH and where the SSH daemon does not use the
           PATH configured by the user.

       --exit-code
           Exit with status "2" when no matching refs are found in the remote repository. Usually
           the command exits with status "0" to indicate it successfully talked with the remote
           repository, whether it found any matching refs.

       --get-url
           Expand the URL of the given remote repository taking into account any
           "url.<base>.insteadOf" config setting (See git-config(1)) and exit without talking to the
           remote.

       --symref
           In addition to the object pointed by it, show the underlying ref pointed by it when
           showing a symbolic ref. Currently, upload-pack only shows the symref HEAD, so it will be
           the only one shown by ls-remote.

       --sort=<key>
           Sort based on the key given. Prefix - to sort in descending order of the value. Supports
           "version:refname" or "v:refname" (tag names are treated as versions). The
           "version:refname" sort order can also be affected by the "versionsort.suffix"
           configuration variable. See git-for-each-ref(1) for more sort options, but be aware keys
           like committerdate that require access to the objects themselves will not work for refs
           whose objects have not yet been fetched from the remote, and will give a missing object
           error.

       -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. When multiple
           --server-option=<option> are given, they are all sent to the other side in the order
           listed on the command line.

       <repository>
           The "remote" repository to query. This parameter can be either a URL or the name of a
           remote (see the GIT URLS and REMOTES sections of git-fetch(1)).

       <patterns>...
           When unspecified, all references, after filtering done with --heads and --tags, are
           shown. When <patterns>... are specified, only references matching one or more of the
           given patterns are displayed. Each pattern is interpreted as a glob (see glob in
           gitglossary(7)) which is matched against the "tail" of a ref, starting either from the
           start of the ref (so a full name like refs/heads/foo matches) or from a slash separator
           (so bar matches refs/heads/bar but not refs/heads/foobar).

OUTPUT
       The output is in the format:

           <oid> TAB <ref> LF


       When showing an annotated tag, unless --refs is given, two such lines are shown: one with the
       refname for the tag itself as <ref>, and another with <ref> followed by ^{}. The <oid> on the
       latter line shows the name of the object the tag points at.

EXAMPLES
       •   List all references (including symbolics and pseudorefs), peeling tags:

               $ git ls-remote
               27d43aaaf50ef0ae014b88bba294f93658016a2e        HEAD
               950264636c68591989456e3ba0a5442f93152c1a        refs/heads/main
               d9ab777d41f92a8c1684c91cfb02053d7dd1046b        refs/heads/next
               d4ca2e3147b409459955613c152220f4db848ee1        refs/tags/v2.40.0
               73876f4861cd3d187a4682290ab75c9dccadbc56        refs/tags/v2.40.0^{}


       •   List all references matching given patterns:

               $ git ls-remote http://www.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git master seen rc
               5fe978a5381f1fbad26a80e682ddd2a401966740        refs/heads/master
               c781a84b5204fb294c9ccc79f8b3baceeb32c061        refs/heads/seen


       •   List only tags matching a given wildcard pattern:

               $ git ls-remote --tags http://www.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git v\*
               485a869c64a68cc5795dd99689797c5900f4716d        refs/tags/v2.39.2
               cbf04937d5b9fcf0a76c28f69e6294e9e3ecd7e6        refs/tags/v2.39.2^{}
               d4ca2e3147b409459955613c152220f4db848ee1        refs/tags/v2.40.0
               73876f4861cd3d187a4682290ab75c9dccadbc56        refs/tags/v2.40.0^{}


SEE ALSO
       git-check-ref-format(1).

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.43.0                                   07/02/2025                             GIT-LS-REMOTE(1)