git show-branch

An ancient ASCII multi-branch viewer. Sometimes still the right tool.

🎯 What & why

git show-branch is an ancient ASCII viewer that summarizes the relationship between several branch tips at once: which commits are on which branch, and where they diverge. It predates the modern log graph but is still excellent for fast multi-branch reads.

🧠 Mental model

A column-per-branch matrix: each row is a commit, each column shows whether that commit is reachable from that branch tip. Reading down the columns reveals the divergence point at a glance.

🛠️ Synopsis

git show-branch [--all] [--remotes] [--list]
                [--current] [--topo-order]
                [--more=<n>] [--merge-base]
                [--reflog=<n>] [<branch>...]

🎚️ Switches & options

Flag	What it does
`--all`	Include all local and remote branches.
`--remotes`	Include only remote-tracking branches.
`--list`	Print only branch names, like a terse `git branch`.
`--current`	Add a row marking the current HEAD position.
`--topo-order`	Sort commits topologically rather than by date.
`--more=<n>`	Show <n> additional commits past the merge base.
`--merge-base`	Print only the merge base of the listed branches.
`--reflog=<n>`	Use the last <n> reflog entries for the named ref.

💡 Use cases

Quickly seeing where three feature branches diverged from main without firing up a GUI.
Auditing which remote branches still have commits not in main during cleanup.
Inspecting reflog history of a single branch as a column view with --reflog.
Confirming the merge base of two branches without computing it manually.

🧪 Examples

Compare two branches with extra context

git show-branch --more=10 main feature

All branches at once

git show-branch --all --topo-order

Just the merge base

git show-branch --merge-base main feature

Reflog view of a branch

git show-branch --reflog=20 main

🎓 Recommendations

Reach for show-branch when you need a quick multi-branch overview and git log --graph would be too noisy.
Combine --all with --topo-order in scripts; date order can shuffle history confusingly.
Prefer --merge-base over piping to git merge-base when you also want to see the surrounding commits.

🪤 Common pitfalls

The output is dense and column-aligned; resizing the terminal mangles it.
It silently truncates long branch names, which can mislead you about which column is which.
Most younger engineers have never seen it; don't paste output into reviews without explaining the format.

🔗 Related modules

📝 Quiz

Hit each option, then Check answers. Score is recorded; Next is always open.