Where's Your Head At?

Number of Commits Ahead/Behind

May 21, 2025 • 3 min read

Git Tutorial

Another day, another realization that I still have a lot to learn in Git. Today’s medium-dive: understanding how changes on a development branch compare to main.

Precondition

First grab latest remote changes:
```
git fetch origin
```

Local Branch Vs Tracking Branch

This is the easy one. git status says if you’re ahead/behind your remote tracking branch (e.g. origin/testbranch).

Changes Vs Local Master

Number of Commits Ahead/Behind Local Master

This is one seems almost random, but this outputs how many commits your HEAD is behind (first number) and ahead (second number) of local master`.

git rev-list --left-right --count master...HEAD

Visual of the Commits Ahead/Behind Local Master

git log --oneline --graph --decorate master..HEAD # commits ahead
git log --oneline --graph --decorate HEAD..master # commits behind

Number of Commits Ahead/Behind Local Master in Plain English

git rev-list --left-right --count master...HEAD | awk '{print "Behind by "$1" commits, ahead by "$2" commits."}'

Changes Vs Remote Master

Number of Commits Ahead/Behind Remote Master

git rev-list --left-right --count origin/master...HEAD

Visual of the Commits Ahead/Behind Remote Master

git log --oneline --graph --decorate origin/master..HEAD # commits ahead
git log --oneline --graph --decorate HEAD..origin/master # commits behind

Number of Commits Ahead/Behind Remote Master In Plain English

git fetch origin && git rev-list --left-right --count origin/master...HEAD | awk '{print "Behind by "$1" commits, ahead by "$2" commits."}'

Misc Helpful stuff

see which upstream your current branch tracks (and ahead/behind vs upstream)

git branch -vv

ensure local master matches the remote (optional)

git checkout master
git fetch origin
git pull --ff-only   # or: git reset --hard origin/master

Above Commands Using Main

And for easy copy/pasting if you use main instead of master:

git rev-list --left-right --count main...HEAD # number behind/head (local)
git log --oneline --graph --decorate main..HEAD # commits ahead (local)
git log --oneline --graph --decorate HEAD..main # commits behind (local)
git rev-list --left-right --count main...HEAD | awk '{print "Behind by "$1" commits, ahead by "$2" commits."}' (local)
git rev-list --left-right --count origin/main...HEAD # number behind/head (remote)
git log --oneline --graph --decorate origin/main..HEAD # commits ahead (remote)
git log --oneline --graph --decorate HEAD..origin/main # commits behind (remote)
git rev-list --left-right --count origin/main...HEAD | awk '{print "Behind by "$1" commits, ahead by "$2" commits."}' (remote)

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