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SPDX-FileCopyrightText: © 2026 Jeffrey C. Ollie <jeff@ocjtech.us>
SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
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# grebe

grebe is a history browser for git repositories, a replacement for gitk.
These are the words its code, its documentation and its configuration use
for the things in it.

## What is browsed

**Revision arguments**:
What grebe is started with — `--all`, `main..topic`, `-- src/` — which
choose the commits shown, and which mean exactly what they mean to
`git log`.
_Avoid_: rev-list args, filter

**History**:
The commits the revision arguments choose, in the order they are shown.
_Avoid_: log, graph (which is the drawing of it)

## What a user sees

**Graph**:
The drawing of commits and their ancestry beside the commit list, one row
per commit.

**Commit list**:
The commits being browsed, one row each, with columns for the subject, the
author and the date.

**Row**:
One commit's line across the graph and the commit list.

**Lane**:
A vertical track in the graph that a line of descent occupies.
_Avoid_: column (which is the commit list's), track

**Edge**:
The line in the graph from a commit to one of its parents.

**Selected commit**:
The commit whose details and diff are being shown.
_Avoid_: current commit (easily confused with `HEAD`)

**Pseudo-commit**:
A row above `HEAD` standing for changes not yet committed: one for those in
the working tree, one for those in the index.
_Avoid_: fake commit

**Marked commit**:
A commit set aside so that another can be compared with it. There is at
most one.

**Diff**:
What the selected commit changes, file by file; for a merge, only what
the merge did that none of its parents did.
_Avoid_: patch

**Find**:
What the find bar looks for: commits containing some text, touching some
paths, adding or removing a string, or changing lines that match.
_Avoid_: search, filter (which hides what does not match; a find hides
nothing)

**Match**:
A commit the find found, lit in the commit list.
_Avoid_: hit, result

**Details**:
The selected commit's metadata and message, shown above its diff.

**File list**:
The files the selected commit changes, beside its details and diff.

**Branch checked out**:
The branch `HEAD` names, whose label has the heavier border; what a reset
moves. With `HEAD` detached there is none, and a reset moves `HEAD`.
_Avoid_: current branch (easily confused with the selected commit's)

**Dialog**:
A question over the window that has to be answered, or dismissed with
Escape, before anything behind it can be used: asked before grebe changes
a branch.