Post #3983770
2026-07-13 18:51 UTC
I’ve seen cases where the commit was still there, even though there were no pointers (branches/tags) pointing at it. Which raises the question, when does git delete a commit?
Replies (1)
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@HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org 2026-07-14 04:26
Commits are pointed to by references such as branch names. If a branch is deleted or a force push happens, the commit remains accesible for some time. It can be found in the “reflog”. This works much like pointers and automated memory management. If no tag points at it, it will become garbage-collected at some point. Adding a tag like “non-ai-master” would prevent garbage collection.