git-commit-dag

Analyze which commits in a range can be safely reordered without conflicts.

Given a range of commits, git-commit-dag uses patch commutation to build a dependency DAG — showing which commits must come before which others, and which are independent.

Usage

git commit-dag <base>..<last> [--svg] [--context N] [--show-files] [--whole-file]
git commit-dag <base> <last>  [--svg] [--context N] [--show-files] [--whole-file]
git commit-dag --explain <commit1> <commit2> [--context N] [--whole-file]

The range follows standard git conventions: base is excluded, last is included (same as git log base..last).

Option	Description
`--explain`	Show conflicting hunks between two specific commits
`--svg`	Output as SVG
`--context N`	Expand hunks by N context lines (default 0; `git apply` uses 3)
`--show-files`	Show which files cause each dependency
`--whole-file`	Treat any two commits touching the same file as dependent

Example

$ git commit-dag HEAD~4 HEAD
○ d11afa9 A: modify line1 of file1
│ ○ cc006b8 C: modify file2
│ │
○ │ 03487f3 B: modify line1 of file1 again
├─┘
○   0a7d408 D: modify both files

411e44d E: update README  (independent)

Use --explain to see why two commits depend on each other:

$ git commit-dag --explain abc1234 def5678
abc1234 Fix login validation
def5678 Add rate limiting

auth.rs:
  [abc1234] @@ -42,1 +42,1 @@
  -old_check()
  +new_check()
  [def5678] @@ -43,0 +43,2 @@
  +rate_limit()
  +log_attempt()

Use --svg for graphical output:

git commit-dag HEAD~10 HEAD --svg > deps.svg

Building

cargo build --release
cp target/release/git-commit-dag ~/.local/bin/

Limitations

Textual analysis only — semantically dependent commits that touch different lines won't be detected.
Binary files, renames, and submodules are not analyzed.
Uses zero context lines by default, which is slightly more permissive than git apply. Use --context 3 to match git's default.

License

BSD-3-Clause. Patch commutation algorithm vendored from git-absorb.

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README.md

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