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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-13T23:44:20+00:00

Right now, when I type git branch it lists my branches in an arbitrary

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Right now, when I type “git branch”

it lists my branches in an arbitrary order.

What I would prefer would be if “git branch” listed my output in a tree like fasion, somethign like:

master
|-- foo
  |-- foo1
  |-- foo2
|-- bar
  |-- bar4

Where here, foo & bar were branched from master; foo1 & foo2 were branched from foo; bar4 was branched from bar.

Is this easy to accomplish?

[Command line utilities only. This needs to fit into my zsh/vim workflow.]

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The answer below uses git log:

    I mentioned a similar approach in 2009 with “Unable to show a Git tree in terminal“:

    git log --graph --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit

    But the full one I have been using is in “How to display the tag name and branch name using git log –graph” (2011):

    git config --global alias.lgb "log --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset%n' --abbrev-commit --date=relative --branches"

git lgb

    Original answer (2010)

    git show-branch --list comes close of what you are looking for (with the topo order)

    --topo-order

    By default, the branches and their commits are shown in reverse chronological order.
    This option makes them appear in topological order (i.e., descendant commits are shown before their parents).

    But the tool git wtf can help too. Example:

    $ git wtf
Local branch: master
[ ] NOT in sync with remote (needs push)
    - Add before-search hook, for shortcuts for custom search queries. [4430d1b] (edwardzyang@...; 7 days ago)
Remote branch: origin/master (git@gitorious.org:sup/mainline.git)
[x] in sync with local

Feature branches:
{ } origin/release-0.8.1 is NOT merged in (1 commit ahead)
    - bump to 0.8.1 [dab43fb] (wmorgan-sup@...; 2 days ago)
[ ] labels-before-subj is NOT merged in (1 commit ahead)
    - put labels before subject in thread index view [790b64d] (marka@...; 4 weeks ago)
{x} origin/enclosed-message-display-tweaks merged in
(x) experiment merged in (only locally)

NOTE: working directory contains modified files

    git-wtf shows you:

    • How your branch relates to the remote repo, if it’s a tracking branch.
    • How your branch relates to non-feature (“version”) branches, if it’s a feature branch.
    • How your branch relates to the feature branches, if it’s a version branch
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