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In this tutorial, we will discuss how to create tags in a Git repository.

Creating tags in a Git repository

In Git, we may want to mark certain commits or specific points in the history of the project repository. To do this, we can use the tagging feature provided by Git.

Typically, tags are used to mark build or release points.

Let's say we have a release of our project's code and we want to v_1.0mark it with the tag . We can git tagdo this using the command.

grammar:

git tag <tag_name>

So, to create a tag v_1.0, we need to execute the following command.

$ git tag v_1.0

List the tags in our Git repository.

$ git tag
v_1.0

The tag we just git tagcreated with the command v_1.0is a lightweight, commit checksum stored in a file. It is just a pointer to a specific commit and does not store any other information.

To view the details of a tag, we can use git showthe command as shown below.

$ git show v_1.0
commit c1771a7d71340aa0b6aae46598041c4390026b8d (HEAD -> master, tag: v_1.0, origin/master, origin/HEAD)
Author: John Doe <johndoe@xyz.com>
Date:   Sat Feb 26 14:12:06 2022 +0530

    modified readme

Above we can see v_1.0the commits associated with the tag .

Creating annotated tags in a Git repository

We can also create annotated tags and store details such as tag name, email, and date in the Git database. We can also add a tag message.

These tags can also be signed and verified using GNU Privacy Guard (GPG).

To create an v_2.0annotated tag named , we need to use git tagthe command with -athe option.

$ git tag -a v_2.0 -m "version 2.0"

So, we have now created our label . We provided the label message v_2.0using the -t option git tagof the command .-m

Now, to see the details of the annotated tag, we execute the following command.

$ git show v_2.0
tag v_2.0
Tagger: John Doe <johndoe@xyz.com>
Date:   Sat Feb 26 14:23:05 2022 +0530

version 2.0

commit c1771a7d71340aa0b6aae46598041c4390026b8d (HEAD -> master, tag: v_2.0, tag: v_1.0, origin/master, origin/HEAD)
Author: John Doe <johndoe@xyz.com>
Date:   Sat Feb 26 14:12:06 2022 +0530

    updated readme

So we see the name and email of the annotator. We can also see the tag message and of course the commit associated with the tag.

When executing git pushthe command, the tag is not pushed to the remote repository by default. Therefore, to v_2.0push the tag to the remote repository, we need to run git pushthe command.

$ git push origin v_2.0

When we already have many tags present, we can push all of them at once using --tagsthe -p option with the -p command.git push

$ git push origin --tags

To learn more about Git tags, visit the following:

1. Git Basics - Tags
2. git tags
3. Git tags