Timeline is a drop-in replacement for git-log which improves the readability of its output.

Timeline is a drop-in replacement for git log. So git timeline accepts ANY option supported by git-log.

Timeline has very few additional options. Learn them through git timeline -h.

• Commit hashes, PR numbers and issue numbers are formatted as terminal hyperlinks to the hosting provider.
• Indication of some commit characteristics: An asterisk next to the hash means the commit is a merge; next to the author name means the author and committer have different names.
• One-line format including date (%ad) and author (%an).
• Pass-through of all opts/args to git-log.

• This in a commit subject line breaks the format: </hernancerm.git-timeline.subject-line>
• Not tested in any way in Windows.

1. Add the Homebrew tap:

brew tap hernancerm/formulas https://github.com/hernancerm/formulas

2. Install Timeline:

brew install git-timeline

3. Verify installation by executing in a git repo:

git timeline

Optional: ~/.gitconfig: Create the below alias to shorten git timeline to git l.

[alias]
    l = timeline

1. Fetch the newest version of all formulas.

brew update

2. Upgrade Timeline.

brew upgrade git-timeline

• Date format: Use the option --date as defined in the documentation of git-log.
• Pager command: Use the env var GIT_PAGER, core.pager from gitconfig or env var PAGER.

Completions only work for git timeline, not git-timeline.

Use a command below to sync the completions of git timeline when you upgrade Git.

If your Git is installed with Homebrew:

curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hernancerm/git-timeline/refs/heads/main/completions/_git_timeline.generate.zsh \
  | zsh /dev/stdin > $(brew --prefix)/share/zsh/site-functions/_git_timeline

If your Git is not installed through Homebrew, just change the destination file to something in your FPATH.

For Ubuntu, you might need to create a _git-timeline instead of a _git_timeline.

The project is written in Java 25.

The steps below should work for macOS (arm64 and x86) and Linux (arm64 and x86).

GraalVM Native Image is used to compile Java to a native binary.

1. Download the Java 25 JDK provided by GraalVM.

   Either do it manually through the website: https://www.graalvm.org/downloads/

   Or use mise (https://mise.jdx.dev): mise install java@graalvm-community-25.0.2

   Or use SDKMAN! (https://sdkman.io): sdk install java 25.0.2-graal

2. Ensure the JDK used is the GraalVM JDK. The output of java -version should contain GraalVM.

   Otherwise, set the env var GRAALVM_HOME to point to your GraalVM JDK.

3. On a clone of this repo run make bin.

The binary is created at ./target/git-timeline.

Execute it with ./target/git-timeline.

1. Download a Java 25 JDK.

2. Set the env var JAVA_HOME.

3. On a clone of this repo run make uber.

The uber JAR is created at ./target/git-timeline.jar.

Execute it with java -jar ./target/git-timeline.jar.

Timeline does not follow semantic versioning.

• x.y. Here is what an increment on each part means:
  • x: At least one breaking change is included in the release.
  • y: Only non-breaking changes, of any kind, are included in the release.