git-master-tool

A CLI toolkit to supercharge your git workflow. Run as gitmt <command>.

Commands

Command	Description
`compare`	Compare two branches and surface unmerged commits
`scan`	Group pending commits into safe cherry-pick batches
`pick`	Interactively cherry-pick a batch or individual commit
`search`	Check if a commit message already exists to ensure uniqueness
`tagdiff`	List commits between two tags
`upgrade`	Upgrade gitmt to the latest release

compare

Identify which commits from a source branch have not yet been cherry-picked into a target branch.

How it works

gitmt compare finds the common ancestor of both branches, then lists every commit in the source branch since that point. Each commit is matched against the target branch by commit message — since cherry-picking preserves the original message, a match means the commit has already been applied.

Installation

macOS / Linux

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/anthonygacis/git-master-tool/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

Windows (PowerShell)

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/anthonygacis/git-master-tool/main/scripts/install.ps1 | iex

The installer automatically:

Detects your OS and architecture
Downloads the latest release binary from GitHub
Installs to /usr/local/bin (macOS/Linux) or %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\gitmt (Windows)
Adds the install directory to your PATH if needed

On macOS a universal binary is downloaded (runs natively on both Intel and Apple Silicon).

Build from source

Requires Go 1.21+.

git clone https://github.com/anthonygacis/git-master-tool.git
cd git-master-tool
make install

make install builds a universal macOS binary and copies it to /usr/local/bin. See Makefile for all available targets (release, build-linux-amd64, build-windows, etc.).

Usage

gitmt compare [flags] [source target]

All options can be provided as flags, set in .gitmt.yml, or both — flags always take precedence over the config file.

Flags

Flag	Description	Default
`-source`	Source branch (commits to cherry-pick from)
`-target`	Target branch (branch to cherry-pick into)
`-show`	`pending` or `all`	`all`
`-show-author`	Show commit author: `true` or `false`	`true`
`-show-date`	Show commit date and time: `true` or `false`	`true`
`-format`	`default`, `table`, `json`, or `csv`	`default`
`-prefixes`	Comma-separated Jira prefixes (e.g. `XS,XI`)
`-show-ticket-authors`	Show authors in ticket summary: `true` or `false`	`true`

Examples

# positional args (shorthand)
gitmt compare develop master

# with flags
gitmt compare -show pending -format table develop master

# use config file for source/target, override format
gitmt compare -format json

# hide author, show only pending
gitmt compare -show-author=false -show pending develop master

# ticket summary grouped by Jira prefix
gitmt compare -prefixes XS,XI develop master

Output formats

default

Colored list grouped by status.

Branch comparison
  source : develop
  target : master
  base   : a1a2198

 Pending — not yet in master:
  1. 20b048a  2026-03-01 14:22  (Jane Doe)  feat: add feature C
  2. dacf154  2026-02-28 09:05  (Jane Doe)  feat: add feature B

 Already applied — commit message found in master:
  1. eed2e8d  2026-02-20 11:30  (Jane Doe)  feat: add feature A

Summary
  pending    2 commit(s) need cherry-picking into master
  applied    1 commit(s) already applied

table

Box-drawn table with dynamic column widths.

┌─────────┬─────────┬──────────────────┬──────────┬─────────────────────┐
│ STATUS  │ HASH    │ DATE             │ AUTHOR   │ MESSAGE             │
├─────────┼─────────┼──────────────────┼──────────┼─────────────────────┤
│ pending │ 20b048a │ 2026-03-01 14:22 │ Jane Doe │ feat: add feature C │
│ pending │ dacf154 │ 2026-02-28 09:05 │ Jane Doe │ feat: add feature B │
│ applied │ eed2e8d │ 2026-02-20 11:30 │ Jane Doe │ feat: add feature A │
└─────────┴─────────┴──────────────────┴──────────┴─────────────────────┘

  2 pending   1 applied

csv

Standard CSV output — useful for importing into spreadsheets or further shell processing.

status,hash,date,author,message
pending,20b048a,2026-03-01 14:22,Jane Doe,feat: add feature C
pending,dacf154,2026-02-28 09:05,Jane Doe,feat: add feature B
applied,eed2e8d,2026-02-20 11:30,Jane Doe,feat: add feature A

Fields with commas or quotes are automatically escaped per RFC 4180.

json

Machine-readable output, useful for piping into other tools.

{
  "source": "develop",
  "target": "master",
  "base": "a1a2198",
  "commits": [
    { "hash": "20b048a", "date": "2026-03-01 14:22", "author": "Jane Doe", "message": "feat: add feature C", "status": "pending" },
    { "hash": "dacf154", "date": "2026-02-28 09:05", "author": "Jane Doe", "message": "feat: add feature B", "status": "pending" },
    { "hash": "eed2e8d", "date": "2026-02-20 11:30", "author": "Jane Doe", "message": "feat: add feature A", "status": "applied" }
  ],
  "summary": { "pending": 2, "applied": 1 }
}

Ticket summary

When -prefixes is set, gitmt compare scans each commit message for Jira ticket IDs and groups them by prefix. A single commit can match multiple tickets (e.g. XI-002 XS-001 update auth flow counts toward both). The summary respects the -show filter — only commits visible in the output are counted.

Ticket Summary

XS
  XS-001        2 commits   Jane Doe
  total         2 commits

XI
  XI-002        2 commits   Jane Doe
  total         2 commits

In JSON output the ticket summary appears as a ticket_summary array with a total per prefix group.

Config file

Place a .gitmt.yml file in the root of your repository to set defaults for gitmt compare.

source: develop
target: master
show: all                  # "pending" or "all" (default: "all")
show_author: true          # show commit author (default: true)
show_date: true            # show commit date and time (default: true)
format: default            # "default", "table", "json", or "csv" (default: "default")
prefixes:                  # Jira prefixes to scan for ticket summary (default: none)
  - XS
  - XI
show_ticket_authors: true  # show authors in ticket summary (default: true)

The show_author, show_date fields are shared across compare, scan, and pick.

Field	Description
`source`	Branch containing the commits you are cherry-picking from
`target`	Branch you are cherry-picking into
`show`	`all` shows pending + already applied. `pending` shows only commits that still need cherry-picking
`show_author`	Show commit author next to each entry. Defaults to `true`
`show_date`	Show commit date and time next to each entry. Defaults to `true`
`format`	Output style: `default`, `table`, `json`, or `csv`
`prefixes`	List of Jira ticket prefixes to scan for and group in the ticket summary
`show_ticket_authors`	Show authors per ticket in the ticket summary. Defaults to `true`

scan

Analyzes pending commits and groups them into batches that must be cherry-picked together. Two commits end up in the same batch when they touch at least one common file — cherry-picking them separately would risk a conflict.

gitmt scan runs the same branch comparison as compare to find pending commits, then fetches the file list for each one (git diff-tree). It uses a union-find algorithm to cluster commits that share files into a single batch. Commits with no file overlap with any other pending commit are marked independent and can be cherry-picked on their own.

gitmt scan [flags] [source target]

scan flags

Flag	Description	Default
`-source`	Source branch
`-target`	Target branch
`-show-author`	Show commit author: `true\|false`	`true`
`-show-date`	Show commit date and time: `true\|false`	`true`

Reads -source, -target, show_author, and show_date from .gitmt.yml when present — flags take precedence.

scan examples

# positional args
gitmt scan develop master

# hide author
gitmt scan -show-author=false develop master

# with flags
gitmt scan -source develop -target master

scan output

Each batch is listed in order from newest to oldest commit. Independent commits are green; batches that must go together are yellow.

Scan — cherry-pick batches
  source  : develop
  target  : master
  pending : 5 commit(s)
  batches : 3

● Batch 1  2 commits — cherry-pick together
  a1b2c3d  2026-03-01 14:22  (Jane Doe)  feat: update user auth service  (3 file(s))
  e4f5g6h  2026-03-01 09:11  (Jane Doe)  fix: auth token validation edge case  (2 file(s))
  shared:
    src/auth/service.go
    src/auth/token.go

● Batch 2  1 commit — independent
  i7j8k9l  2026-02-28 17:45  (John Smith)  feat: add dashboard summary widget  (1 file(s))

● Batch 3  2 commits — cherry-pick together
  m1n2o3p  2026-02-27 10:30  (Jane Doe)  refactor: extract payment helpers  (4 file(s))
  q4r5s6t  2026-02-26 16:02  (Jane Doe)  fix: payment rounding error  (2 file(s))
  shared:
    src/payment/helpers.go

When all pending commits are independent the output shows one green batch per commit. When all commits are applied the scan exits with a message instead.

All commits already applied — nothing to scan.

pick

Interactively cherry-picks pending commits onto the current branch. Only unapplied commits are shown. Navigate with arrow keys, toggle selections with space, and confirm with enter. Supports multi-select for both modes.

gitmt pick [flags] [source target]

pick flags

Flag	Description	Default
`-source`	Source branch
`-target`	Target branch
`-show-author`	Show commit author: `true\|false`	`true`
`-show-date`	Show commit date and time: `true\|false`	`true`

Controls

Key	Action
`↑` / `↓`	Move cursor
`space`	Toggle selection (multi-select)
`enter`	Confirm / select
`q` / `esc`	Quit

Batch mode

Shows commits grouped by shared files (same logic as scan). Multiple batches can be selected. All selected commits are applied oldest-first to avoid conflicts.

Individual mode

Lists every pending commit. Commits belonging to a multi-commit batch are flagged with ⚠ batch N so the user knows cherry-picking them alone may cause a conflict. Multiple commits can be selected.

pick output

Step 1 — mode selection:

Cherry-pick   develop → master
  5 pending commit(s)   3 batch(es)

 ▶ Batch      cherry-pick related commits together
   Individual  pick any commits regardless of grouping

  ↑↓ move   [enter] select   [q] quit

Step 2 — batch multi-select:

Select batches to cherry-pick
  3 batch(es)

 ▶ [✓] Batch 1  2 commits — cherry-pick together
        a1b2c3d  2026-03-01 14:22  (Jane Doe)  feat: update user auth service
        e4f5g6h  2026-03-01 09:11  (Jane Doe)  fix: auth token validation edge case
        shared: src/auth/service.go, src/auth/token.go
   [ ] Batch 2  1 commit — independent
        i7j8k9l  2026-02-28 17:45  (John Smith)  feat: add dashboard summary widget
   [✓] Batch 3  2 commits — cherry-pick together
        m1n2o3p  2026-02-27 10:30  (Jane Doe)  refactor: extract payment helpers
        q4r5s6t  2026-02-26 16:02  (Jane Doe)  fix: payment rounding error
        shared: src/payment/helpers.go

  ↑↓ move   [space] toggle   [enter] confirm   [q] quit

Step 2 — individual multi-select:

Select commits to cherry-pick
  5 pending commit(s)

 ▶ [✓] a1b2c3d  2026-03-01 14:22  (Jane Doe)  feat: update user auth service  ⚠ batch 1
   [ ] e4f5g6h  2026-03-01 09:11  (Jane Doe)  fix: auth token validation  ⚠ batch 1
   [✓] i7j8k9l  2026-02-28 17:45  (John Smith)  feat: add dashboard summary widget
   [ ] m1n2o3p  2026-02-27 10:30  (Jane Doe)  refactor: extract payment helpers  ⚠ batch 3
   [ ] q4r5s6t  2026-02-26 16:02  (Jane Doe)  fix: payment rounding error  ⚠ batch 3

  ↑↓ move   [space] toggle   [enter] confirm   [q] quit

Step 3 — confirmation:

About to cherry-pick 3 commits:
  git cherry-pick e4f5g6h a1b2c3d i7j8k9l

Proceed? [y]es / [n]o: y

→ git cherry-pick e4f5b6h a1b2c3d i7j8k9l

✓ Cherry-pick complete

Commits are always applied oldest-first regardless of selection order.

If cherry-pick fails due to a conflict, git is left in the usual conflict state:

error: cherry-pick failed
       resolve conflicts then run: git cherry-pick --continue

search

compare identifies applied commits by matching commit messages exactly between branches. This means every commit message must be unique — if two different commits share the same message, compare will incorrectly treat both as applied.

Use search to check whether an exact commit message (e.g. a PR title) already exists in the branch history before merging or cherry-picking. It performs a compare internally and looks for an exact match in the combined result (pending + applied).

gitmt search [flags] <message> [source target]

search flags

Flag	Description	Default
`-source`	Source branch to search in
`-target`	Target branch to check against
`-show-author`	Show commit author: `true\|false`	`true`
`-show-date`	Show commit date and time: `true\|false`	`true`
`-format`	Output format: `default` or `json`	`default`

Reads source, target, show_author, and show_date from .gitmt.yml when present — flags take precedence.

search examples

# check if an exact commit message already exists
gitmt search "fix: pagination off-by-one" develop master

# json output — returns {"match": true/false}
gitmt search -format json "fix: pagination off-by-one" develop master

# using flags
gitmt search -source develop -target master "fix: pagination off-by-one"

# source only (target from config)
gitmt search "feat: TICKET-123 add export endpoint" develop

search output

Search
  message : "fix: pagination off-by-one"
  source  : develop
  target  : master
  base    : abc1234
  found   : 1 match(es)  (0 pending, 1 applied)

  applied  e4f5g6h  2026-03-09 09:11  (Jane Doe)  fix: pagination off-by-one  ✓ already in master

applied — a commit with this exact message already exists in the target branch. compare would treat any new commit with the same message as already applied. The commit message is not unique — rename it.
pending — the message exists only in source and has not been applied to target yet.

When no match is found:

No commits with message "fix: pagination off-by-one" found in develop since merge base.

search json output

gitmt search -format json "fix: pagination off-by-one" develop master

{ "match": true }

{ "match": false }

tagdiff

Lists commits between two tags. If only one tag is provided, the previous tag is detected automatically.

gitmt tagdiff [from] <to>

tagdiff flags

Flag	Description	Default
`-show-author`	Show commit author: `true\|false`	`true`
`-show-date`	Show commit date and time: `true\|false`	`true`
`-format`	Output format: `default` or `json`	`default`

Reads show_author, show_date, and format from .gitmt.yml when present — flags take precedence.

tagdiff examples

# explicit range
gitmt tagdiff v0.0.1 v0.0.2

# auto-detect previous tag
gitmt tagdiff v0.0.2

# diff previous tag vs the latest tag
gitmt tagdiff latest

# hide author and date
gitmt tagdiff -show-author=false -show-date=false v0.0.1 v0.0.2

# JSON output
gitmt tagdiff -format json v0.0.1 v0.0.2

tagdiff output

Tag diff
  from  : v0.0.1
  to    : v0.0.2
  total : 3 commit(s)

  1. a1b2c3d  2026-03-10 14:22  (Jane Doe)  feat: add export endpoint
  2. e4f5g6h  2026-03-09 09:11  (Jane Doe)  fix: pagination off-by-one
  3. i7j8k9l  2026-03-08 17:45  (John Smith)  chore: bump dependencies

json output

{
  "from": "v0.0.1",
  "to": "v0.0.2",
  "total": 3,
  "commits": [
    { "hash": "a1b2c3d", "date": "2026-03-10 14:22", "author": "Jane Doe", "message": "feat: add export endpoint" },
    { "hash": "e4f5g6h", "date": "2026-03-09 09:11", "author": "Jane Doe", "message": "fix: pagination off-by-one" },
    { "hash": "i7j8k9l", "date": "2026-03-08 17:45", "author": "John Smith", "message": "chore: bump dependencies" }
  ]
}

When only one tag is given, the from is resolved automatically:

$ gitmt tagdiff v0.0.2
# equivalent to: gitmt tagdiff v0.0.1 v0.0.2

If there are no commits between the two tags:

No commits between v0.0.1 and v0.0.2.

upgrade

Downloads and replaces the current binary with the latest release from GitHub. The platform and architecture are detected automatically.

gitmt upgrade

If gitmt is already on the latest version, the command exits early:

Upgrade gitmt

→ Checking latest release...
✓ Already on the latest version (v0.1.0)

Otherwise it downloads the new binary and installs it in-place:

Upgrade gitmt

→ Checking latest release...
  current : v0.0.3
  latest  : v0.1.0

→ Downloading gitmt-darwin-universal...
→ Installing to /usr/local/bin/gitmt...
✓ Updated to v0.1.0

If the install path requires elevated permissions (e.g. /usr/local/bin on macOS), run with sudo:

sudo gitmt upgrade

Project structure

git-master-tool/
├── Makefile
├── README.md
├── src/               Go source code
│   ├── main.go
│   ├── git.go
│   ├── output.go
│   ├── tickets.go
│   ├── go.mod
│   └── go.sum
├── scripts/           Installer scripts
│   ├── install.sh     macOS / Linux
│   └── install.ps1    Windows
└── dist/              Build output (generated by make)

Requirements

Git installed and available on $PATH
Must be run from inside a git repository
Go 1.21+ only required when building from source

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 17 Commits
.github/workflows		.github/workflows
scripts		scripts
src		src
.gitignore		.gitignore
Makefile		Makefile
README.md		README.md

Folders and files

Latest commit

History

Repository files navigation

git-master-tool

Commands

compare

How it works

Installation

macOS / Linux

Windows (PowerShell)

Build from source

Usage

Flags

Examples

Output formats

default

table

csv

json

Ticket summary

Config file

scan

scan flags

scan examples

scan output

pick

pick flags

Controls

Batch mode

Individual mode

pick output

search

search flags

search examples

search output

search json output

tagdiff

tagdiff flags

tagdiff examples

tagdiff output

json output

upgrade

Project structure

Requirements

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