Show the latest commits

Run inside an existing Git repository. This reads history; it does not change files or branches.

bash
git log --graph --oneline --all --decorate --topo-order --pretty=format:'%C(cyan)%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(magenta)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit --date=relative -n 20

Read the output

Illustrative output, not repository evidence:

text
* a1b2c3d - (HEAD -> main) Fix documentation (2 hours ago) <Example Author>
* e4f5a6b - Add first example (yesterday) <Example Author>

Each star is a commit; connecting lines show ancestry, not the order in which changes were deployed. --all includes all local refs, --decorate labels branch/tag pointers, --topo-order keeps topology readable, and -n 20 limits the count. Colours are decorative; hashes, labels and messages carry the meaning.

Optional shorter version and alias

bash
git --no-pager log --graph --oneline --decorate -n 10

To save a repository-local alias (writes this repository's Git config):

bash
git config alias.graph "log --graph --oneline --all --decorate -n 20"
git graph

Remove it with git config --unset alias.graph. Reference: git-log .