TIL: Find my own commits

The --author flag for git log lets you filter commits by a specific person. It matches the entire author line so you can search for the name or email address: git log --author Alice and git log --author bob@example.com both work. From the man page:

--author=<pattern>, --committer=<pattern>
    Limit the commits output to ones with author/committer header lines that match the <pattern> regular
    expression. With more than one --author=<pattern>, commits whose author matches any of the <pattern> are
    chosen (similarly for multiple --committer=<pattern>).

Of course, being egocentric, the author I am most interested in is myself. I made this alias to find my own commits:

alias glm="git log --author=$(git config user.name)"

I use this all the time to jog my memory (“What have I merged recently?” glm origin/main) and to dig up changes I remember making, by combining with other filters:

  • git log --grep to search commit messages
  • git log -S (the “pickaxe”) to searches for commits that added or removed a fragment of code, ignoring when it simply moved around in a file.
  • git log [file path] to find places I changed a certain file or directory

You can use --author multiple times with OR semantics: git log --author Alice --author Bob. It accepts regular expressions when combined with -E: git log -E --author "Alice|Bob|Eve" finds commits from all three people.

git