man > git-cherry(1)

GIT-CHERRY(1)                                Git Manual                                GIT-CHERRY(1)

NAME
       git-cherry - Find commits yet to be applied to upstream

SYNOPSIS
       git cherry [-v] [<upstream> [<head> [<limit>]]]


DESCRIPTION
       Determine whether there are commits in <head>..<upstream> that are equivalent to those in the
       range <limit>..<head>.

       The equivalence test is based on the diff, after removing whitespace and line numbers.
       git-cherry therefore detects when commits have been "copied" by means of git-cherry-pick(1),
       git-am(1) or git-rebase(1).

       Outputs the SHA1 of every commit in <limit>..<head>, prefixed with - for commits that have an
       equivalent in <upstream>, and + for commits that do not.

OPTIONS
       -v
           Show the commit subjects next to the SHA1s.

       <upstream>
           Upstream branch to search for equivalent commits. Defaults to the upstream branch of
           HEAD.

       <head>
           Working branch; defaults to HEAD.

       <limit>
           Do not report commits up to (and including) limit.

EXAMPLES
   Patch workflows
       git-cherry is frequently used in patch-based workflows (see gitworkflows(7)) to determine if
       a series of patches has been applied by the upstream maintainer. In such a workflow you might
       create and send a topic branch like this:

           $ git checkout -b topic origin/master
           # work and create some commits
           $ git format-patch origin/master
           $ git send-email ... 00*


       Later, you can see whether your changes have been applied by saying (still on topic):

           $ git fetch  # update your notion of origin/master
           $ git cherry -v


   Concrete example
       In a situation where topic consisted of three commits, and the maintainer applied two of
       them, the situation might look like:

           $ git log --graph --oneline --decorate --boundary origin/master...topic
           * 7654321 (origin/master) upstream tip commit
           [... snip some other commits ...]
           * cccc111 cherry-pick of C
           * aaaa111 cherry-pick of A
           [... snip a lot more that has happened ...]
           | * cccc000 (topic) commit C
           | * bbbb000 commit B
           | * aaaa000 commit A
           |/
           o 1234567 branch point


       In such cases, git-cherry shows a concise summary of what has yet to be applied:

           $ git cherry origin/master topic
           - cccc000... commit C
           + bbbb000... commit B
           - aaaa000... commit A


       Here, we see that the commits A and C (marked with -) can be dropped from your topic branch
       when you rebase it on top of origin/master, while the commit B (marked with +) still needs to
       be kept so that it will be sent to be applied to origin/master.

   Using a limit
       The optional <limit> is useful in cases where your topic is based on other work that is not
       in upstream. Expanding on the previous example, this might look like:

           $ git log --graph --oneline --decorate --boundary origin/master...topic
           * 7654321 (origin/master) upstream tip commit
           [... snip some other commits ...]
           * cccc111 cherry-pick of C
           * aaaa111 cherry-pick of A
           [... snip a lot more that has happened ...]
           | * cccc000 (topic) commit C
           | * bbbb000 commit B
           | * aaaa000 commit A
           | * 0000fff (base) unpublished stuff F
           [... snip ...]
           | * 0000aaa unpublished stuff A
           |/
           o 1234567 merge-base between upstream and topic


       By specifying base as the limit, you can avoid listing commits between base and topic:

           $ git cherry origin/master topic base
           - cccc000... commit C
           + bbbb000... commit B
           - aaaa000... commit A


SEE ALSO
       git-patch-id(1)

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.43.0                                   07/02/2025                                GIT-CHERRY(1)