Show which git tag you are on?

Question

Edit: Jakub Narębski has more git-fu. The following much simpler command works perfectly:

git describe --tags

(Or without the --tags if you have checked out an annotated tag. My tag is lightweight, so I need the --tags.)

original answer follows:

git describe --exact-match --tags $(git log -n1 --pretty='%h')

Someone with more git-fu may have a more elegant solution...

This leverages the fact that git-log reports the log starting from what you've checked out. %h prints the abbreviated hash. Then git describe --exact-match --tags finds the tag (lightweight or annotated) that exactly matches that commit.

The $() syntax above assumes you're using bash or similar.

This worked for me git describe --tags --abbrev=0

Edit 2020: As mentioned by some of the comments below, this might, or might not work for you, so be careful!

Show all tags on current HEAD (or commit)

git tag --points-at HEAD

git describe is a porcelain command, which you should avoid:

http://git-blame.blogspot.com/2013/06/checking-current-branch-programatically.html

Instead, I used:

git name-rev --tags --name-only $(git rev-parse HEAD)

When you check out a tag, you have what's called a "detached head". Normally, Git's HEAD commit is a pointer to the branch that you currently have checked out. However, if you check out something other than a local branch (a tag or a remote branch, for example) you have a "detached head" -- you're not really on any branch. You should not make any commits while on a detached head.

It's okay to check out a tag if you don't want to make any edits. If you're just examining the contents of files, or you want to build your project from a tag, it's okay to git checkout my_tag and work with the files, as long as you don't make any commits. If you want to start modifying files, you should create a branch based on the tag:

$ git checkout -b my_tag_branch my_tag

will create a new branch called my_tag_branch starting from my_tag. It's safe to commit changes on this branch.

git log --decorate

This will tell you what refs are pointing to the currently checked out commit.