How Can I Get a List of Git Branches, Ordered by Most Recent Commit?

To get a list of Git branches ordered by their most recent commit, you can use the git for-each-ref command along with sorting options. Here’s a command that will do this for you:

git for-each-ref --sort=-committerdate refs/heads/ --format='%(committerdate:iso8601) %(refname:short)'

Explanation

• git for-each-ref: This command iterates over all refs (branches, tags, etc.) in your repository.
• -sort=-committerdate: This option sorts the branches by the commit date in descending order (most recent commit first).
• refs/heads/: This specifies that we are only interested in local branches.
• -format='%(committerdate:iso8601) %(refname:short)': This formats the output to show the commit date and the branch name. %(refname:short) gives the short name of the ref (i.e., the branch name without the refs/heads/ prefix).

Example Output

Running the command above might give you output like this:

2024-06-24 10:15:30 +0000 main
2024-06-23 08:45:12 +0000 feature-xyz
2024-06-22 14:20:50 +0000 bugfix-abc

In this example, main is the branch with the most recent commit, followed by feature-xyz and bugfix-abc.

Optional: Without Commit Dates

If you prefer to see just the branch names without the commit dates, you can simplify the format:

git for-each-ref --sort=-committerdate refs/heads/ --format='%(refname:short)'

This will give you an output like:

main
feature-xyz
bugfix-abc

This command provides a quick and effective way to see your branches ordered by their most recent commit.

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