Deskin Miller [off-list ref] writes:
I did 'git branch -M @{-1}' yesterday and ended up renaming my branch
to refs/heads/@{-1}. Personally my usage felt like it should work
(but of course I think that); curious to know what others think, if
this is a bug.
The @{-n} notation is supposed to be usable anywhere you would write a
branch name and should behave as if you wrote the name itself. And 'git
branch -M <name> [<name>]' does expect a branch name, not a random
extended SHA-1 expression.
I'd say it is a bug.