git recent

Speedily browse your latest local git branches, checkout with Enter. Also view branches unique commits, and optionally the diff against main.

git-recent-2-0-demo.webm

git recent now offers an interactive UI (thx to fzf) for browsing recent branches, seeing differences, and checkout'ing your selection.

See a diff of your branch vs main with ctrl-o. If you have delta it'll use that for formatting, but will fallback, too.

If you're like me, mostly using classic git commands, then git recent provides a nice upgrade for browsing/selecting recent branches. But if you're a TUI fan using git-fuzzy, lazygit or tig or fzf-git, well… this probably isn't an upgrade. :p (But you can certainly read the source quickly!)

Installation

fzf is required for 2.0. TBH, it's a fantastic tool; those shell key bindings are delightful. That said, if you're dependency-averse, the older version below, git recent-og, may be for you.

Mac: brew install fzf
Linux: sudo apt-get install fzf
Windows: choco install fzf

Then, do one of these:

Manual: Grab the git-recent script from this repo and put it anywhere in your $PATH. Run chmod +x git-recent.
Via NPM: npm install --global git-recent
Homebrew: brew install git-recent

Usage

git recent

Hit Enter to checkout the selected branch.

Type or use arrow keys to navigate your list of branches.

Hit ctrl-o to see the branch diff.

Worktree Support

If a branch is already open in a separate git worktree, git recent will detect it and provide instructions to cd there. To enable automatic directory switching, add one of these wrapper functions to your shell config:

Bash / Zsh (in `.bashrc` or `.zshrc`)

recent() {
  local o=$(command git-recent "$@")
  [ -d "$o" ] && cd "$o" || [ -n "$o" ] && echo "$o"
}

Fish (in `~/.config/fish/config.fish`)

function recent
  set -l o (command git-recent $argv)
  if test -d "$o"
    cd $o
  else if test -n "$o"
    echo $o
  end
end

`git recent-og`

git recent-og is the OG git recent, released back in 2016. Now it's been renamed to git recent-og.

git recent-og

Optionally, add -n<int> to see the most recent <n> branches

git recent-og -n5

If you're a Windows user, you need to use Git Bash or similar shell in order to effectively use this utility.

Installation

Install with npm or brew as above, or copy git-recent-og script into an existing path like /usr/local/bin or ~/bin/.

If you like this you may also be interested in...

git open - Open the repo website in your browser
diff-so-fancy - Making the output of git diff so fancy

License

Copyright Paul Irish. Licensed under MIT.

Changelog

2025-02 - 2.0 upgrade with fzf integration. 1.0 binary is now available as git recent-og.
2019-06 - Last bugfix for 1.0 landed. Been stable since then.
2018-10 - Added count -n parameter
2016-08 - released in standalone repo and published to npm
2016-05 - added to paulirish/dotfiles

Latest commit

History