History

History shows a repository's commits as a graph, with the selected commit's message and changes underneath. Use it to find when something changed and who changed it, to compare commits and branches, and to act on a commit: branch or tag from it, merge or rebase onto it, cherry-pick, revert or reset.

#Opening History

The tab is titled "History · trailhead", or "History · cache.ts" for one file. Each repository has one History tab, plus one per file or folder whose history you open; opening the same one again brings its tab forward and reloads it. History tabs are restored with your session.

When History opens, the newest commit is selected and the commit list has the keyboard, so ↑ and ↓ move through commits right away.

#The layout

• The top half is the commit list with its graph, and a header with the scope and the filter.
• The bottom half shows the selected commit: its full message and details, then its changes in the same diff view as Review.

Drag the divider between them to give either half more room. Impulse remembers the height of the top half.

#Current branch or all branches

The header's Current branch / All branches switch decides which commits are listed:

• Current branch shows the history of HEAD: the commits your checked-out branch is built on.
• All branches shows every local branch, remote branch and tag, so you can see how feature/forecast-cache, main and origin/main relate. (Impulse's own refs under refs/impulse/ are never included.)

Opened from the Branch Manager's Show History on another branch, History lists that branch's commits, and the switch gets a third choice named after the branch. Click Current branch or All branches to leave it.

For a file or folder's history, the header shows its path instead of the switch, and the list is that path's commits on the current branch. A single file's history follows it through renames; a folder's lists every commit that touched anything in it.

#The commit list

Each row shows, from left to right:

Hover a row for the full subject, the author's name and email, and the full commit ID.

The list loads 300 commits at a time and loads more as you scroll toward the end. It updates by itself when refs move, for example when you commit, tag, fetch or switch branches, keeping your selection.

The ↑ and ↓ markers come from your last fetch. To keep them current without fetching by hand, turn on Fetch in the background (see Git).

#Fork-point dimming

On Current branch, when you're on a branch other than the default one, commits that were already on the default branch when your branch was created are dimmed. Your branch's own work stands out, and the fork-point icon marks where it begins.

For example, on feature/forecast-cache the commits Sam Ortiz and Priya Raman made on main before the branch was created are gray, and the three commits of the cache work are in full color.

There's no dimming on the default branch itself, on All branches, or when the branch has more than 2,000 commits of its own. The default branch is the remote's (origin/main when origin/HEAD is set), or else a local main, master, trunk or develop.

#The selected commit

Click a commit (or move to it with ↑ and ↓) to show it in the bottom half.

• The details at the top: the subject, the rest of the message (long messages show four lines with Show more), the author and date, "committed by" when someone else committed it, the commit ID (click it to copy) and its parents (click one to show that commit; a merge commit has two).
• The changes below: the commit compared with its first parent, in the same view as Review, so the Review features work here too: unified and split layouts, hiding whitespace, marking files viewed, and comments. Nothing can be staged from here, since a commit isn't your working tree.

When History is narrow, the changes hide the file list; widen the window or the tab to get it back.

In a file's history, the changes scroll to that file. The commit's other files are listed too.

#Filtering

Type in the filter field at the top right ("Filter, or author: path: since:") to narrow the list.

Plain words match the commits already loaded: their subjects, authors, short or full IDs, and branch and tag names.

key:value tokens search all of history with git log, including commits that aren't loaded yet:

Dates can be:

• Relative: a number and a unit, h (hours), d (days), w (weeks), m (months) or y (years). since:30d means the last 30 days.
• A day, YYYY-MM-DD. since: counts from the start of that day and until: up to its end.
• Anything else git understands, such as since:yesterday.

Combine tokens and words freely. Use double quotes for values with spaces:

author:"Maya Chen" path:src/lib/ since:30d cache

The graph is hidden while a filter is active, because filtered commits no longer connect.

The filter icon next to the field (highlighted while tokens are active) has presets: My Commits (your user.name as the author), Last 7 Days, Last 30 Days, Last Year and Clear Filter. Presets replace the same token if it's already there and keep the rest.

#Comparing

Comparisons open in the repository's Review tab, where you get the file list and every review feature:

• Compare a commit with your working tree. Right-click it ▸ Compare with Working Tree. Review shows everything that changed since that commit, uncommitted work included.

• Compare two commits.

  1. Right-click the first commit ▸ Select for Compare. A compare marker appears on it.
  2. Right-click the second commit ▸ Compare with 4e1b9c2 · Cache forecast responses (the first commit's ID and subject).

  Review shows the changes from the older commit to the newer one, whichever you picked first. To cancel, right-click the marked commit ▸ Clear Compare Selection.

• Compare two branches. Do the same on the commits the two branches' chips are on (use All branches to see both). Or, to see what your current branch changed relative to another branch, use Compare with Current Branch in the Branch Manager (see Git).

#Commit actions

Right-click a commit for:

#Branch and tag actions

Right-click a ref chip on a commit for its actions (the same ones are in the commit menu's submenu for that ref):

Push to origin and Delete from origin… appear when the repository has a remote, and name the remote they use: the current branch's remote, else origin, else the only one. Open on GitHub appears when the remote has a web address. Deleting a branch or a local tag can be undone from the toast; deleting a tag from the remote asks first and can't be undone there. See Git.

#Merge and rebase

Merging and rebasing from History work as described in Merging and rebasing: Impulse takes a safety snapshot first, the toast offers Undo for about 15 seconds, and if the operation stops with conflicts, the Changes panel shows the operation banner so you can resolve them and continue (see Merge conflicts).

#Reset

Reset main Here moves the current branch to the commit:

Every reset records a safety snapshot (a hard reset doesn't run without one), and the toast ("Reset to 4e1b9c2 (hard)") offers Undo for about 15 seconds, which brings back the branch, your files and your index.

#Cherry-pick and revert

Cherry-Pick and Revert each make a new commit on the current branch. If the change doesn't apply cleanly, git stops with conflicts and the Changes panel's banner offers Continue, Skip and Abort (see Merge conflicts). A safety snapshot is taken first, and the toast ("Cherry-picked 4e1b9c2", "Reverted 4e1b9c2") offers Undo for about 15 seconds, which takes the new commit back off and puts your files back as they were.

#Tags in History

Tags appear as chips with a tag icon on the commits they point at. With Current branch, you see the tags on your branch's history; with All branches, every tag.

To tag a commit, right-click it ▸ Create Tag Here…. To push, open or delete a tag, right-click its chip. See Tags for annotated and lightweight tags, the suggested next version, and pushing.

#Keyboard

Click into the changes in the bottom half to use Review's keys there (J and K for hunks, N and P for files, V to mark viewed, C to comment). See Review.

#Related

• Review: the diff view History uses, and comparing in depth
• Git: branches, tags, merging, safety snapshots and Undo
• Editor: inline blame and "Show Commit for This Line"
• Terminal: opening commit hashes from terminal output with hints
• Keyboard shortcuts