How to show remote refs/notes/* with git log

Question

How to show refs/notes in a git log --oneline --graph --all --decorate output for remotes?

With the above command I only see my own refs/notes/foobar, but not the remote ref.

The docs don't hint any command I could possibly use for this.

Answer 1

Maybe this is more an answer to something the OP said in a comment:

I want to know what state the remote repository has for my notes.

And it does not address incorporating anything in git log's output as the original question referenced:

... in a git log --oneline --graph --all --decorate output ...

But none of the other discussion mentions ls-remote, which I find helpful for diagnosing issues in the Notes fetch/merge/push process.

E.g. I ask users to run the following when Notes don't appear to be fetching/merging/pushing correctly, showing all 3 things that are typically meant to stay in sync:

• The first command shows what the remote has.
• The second command shows your tracking refs for the remote. (I didn't see any reference to tracking refs here, but we've found it helpful for letting multiple people work on Notes.)
• The third command shows your local refs.

MINGW64 ~/git/repo (master)
$ git ls-remote origin refs/notes/* && git for-each-ref refs/notes/origin/* && git for-each-ref refs/notes/*
b8a71bdc018808e3890800a452d3ac87a0f83261        refs/notes/releaseRollback
e15b2bdc0183f791fcaf1da3b80e5125f58bae9a        refs/notes/sourceCommits
b8a71bdc018808e3890800a452d3ac87a0f83261 commit refs/notes/origin/releaseRollback
e15b2bdc0183f791fcaf1da3b80e5125f58bae9a commit refs/notes/origin/sourceCommits
b8a71bdc018808e3890800a452d3ac87a0f83261 commit refs/notes/releaseRollback
e15b2bdc0183f791fcaf1da3b80e5125f58bae9a commit refs/notes/sourceCommits

You still can't see the actual values (blob contents) of the Notes on the remote, as mentioned in the other answers, because they have to be fetched, but using ls-remote means you at least have some idea of whether the remote has changed.

Answer 2

UPDATE - since comment show this is apparently unclear, I've highlighted where I answered the question.

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Like most git commands, git log operates on the local repo. To see the notes that are on the remote, you need to fetch them.

You can do this manually by saying

git fetch origin refs/notes/*:refs/notes/*

You also could add this to the fetch refspec for the remote, so that it will happen automatically.

Answer 3

First of all let's explain what git notes are.

git commit

As you know every time you commit code to git, git records the current snapshot of the files and the commit object stores the tree and any other extra info as the commit metadata. This metadata is then passed to sha1sum and we get the commit id <SHA-1>.

If later on, we try to modify the commit git commit --amend, the sha-1 will be updated as we can see below. The content is still the same but the SHA-1 is different.

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git notes

As explained above any modification made to commit effects the SHA-1, and this is where git notes come to rescue.

git notes allow us to add content to commit without affecting the SHA-1 of the commit, meaning we can attach content to the commit while leaving the SHA-1 unmodified.

As you can see, git notes is not part of the commit content and like any other commit content is stored under the .git folder (locally under refs/notes/).

In order to get the notes from the server, you have to fetch them like any other git content.

How to fetch notes?

In order to fetch the notes, use the following fetch command with the following refspec:

#  Manually fetch the notes
git fetch origin refs/notes/*:refs/notes/*

#  Add configuration to auto-fetch the notes every time you execute a simple fetch.
#  This will result in fetching the notes every time you fetch the remote.
git config --add remote.origin.fetch +refs/notes/*:refs/notes/*

Answer 4

“Remote” in this context (git-log(1)) most typically means remote refs, i.e. refs/remotes/*. In other words:

git log origin/main

To see the log of the main branch belonging to the origin remote that you have fetched locally.

But those are only for branches, not other refs like notes. So there is no out-of-the-box solution for this.

The only thing you can do is fake your own remote namespace and use that:

git fetch origin refs/notes/commits:refs/notes-remotes/commits
git log notes-remotes/seed