Re: [PATCH] completion: add 'git history' subcommands

Hi all,

I agree with Patrick's review below, this looks good to me! One note…

On Wed, Aug 5, 2026 at 2:25 AM Patrick Steinhardt [off-list ref] wrote:

On Tue, Aug 04, 2026 at 09:56:32PM +0200, Vincent Mailhol wrote:

quoted

Use the parse-options completion helpers for the "git history"
subcommands and their options. Complete positional arguments as
revisions, and add coverage for each kind of completion.

Ah, great! I wanted to write shell completion for git-history(1) for a
while but never really found the time to actually do it.

quoted

diff --git a/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash b/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
index e875787710..f10813c8d7 100644
--- a/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
+++ b/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash

@@ -2137,6 +2137,30 @@ _git_help ()
      fi
 }

+_git_history ()
+{
+     local subcommands subcommand
+
+     __git_resolve_builtins "history"
+
+     subcommands="$___git_resolved_builtins"
+     subcommand="$(__git_find_subcommand "$subcommands")"
+
+     if [ -z "$subcommand" ]; then
+             __gitcomp "$subcommands"
+             return
+     fi

Okay. We first try to figure out whether there is any subcommand passed
by the user already. If not, we complete available subcommands.

quoted

+     case "$cur" in
+     --*)
+             __gitcomp_builtin "history_$subcommand"
+             ;;
+     *)
+             __git_complete_refs
+             ;;
+     esac
+}

Otherwise we try to either complete available options if we see a
leading "--", or alternatively we complete references. This works well
for "drop", "fixup" and "reword".

The one command where this falls flat a bit is `git history split`.
While the first non-option argument is indeed a reference, subsequent
arguments are pathspecs. So ideally, we'd notice that we already have a
reference there and, if so, complete file paths.

…here: I think it's probably going to look a bit like what _git_reflog
and _git_config do, checking the subcommand and using somewhat more
specific completion in that case.

BTW, I'm also reminded of <xmqqpl6g9fyu.fsf@gitster.g>, where Junio
suggested we devise a way to improve _git_stash. Looking at it again
with some context, I bet we can reuse the __git_resolve_builtins
pattern there, too. Not for this patch, of course, just thinking
aloud!

But that being said, I think this is a good-enough first iteration and a
strict improvement over the status quo -- we don't have to be perfect
right from the start. So if you want to also make that case work then
great, but I won't insist on it.

quoted

diff --git a/t/t9902-completion.sh b/t/t9902-completion.sh
index 9ae3c48ebd..08ecf682ed 100755
--- a/t/t9902-completion.sh
+++ b/t/t9902-completion.sh

@@ -3107,6 +3107,23 @@ test_expect_success 'git clone --config= - value' '
      EOF
 '

+test_expect_success 'git history subcommands' '
+     test_completion "git history " <<-\EOF
+     drop Z
+     fixup Z
+     reword Z
+     split Z
+     EOF
+'

This will cause conflicts with "seen", as there's a new upcoming
"squash" command that's currently cooking there. That's fine though,
nothing you can do about that.

Thanks!

Patrick

Thanks!

-- 
D. Ben Knoble