You can search for commits globally across all of GitHub, or search for commits within a particular repository or organization. For more information, see About searching on GitHub.
When you search for commits, only the default branch of a repository is searched.
Tip
- This article contains links to example searches on the GitHub.com website, but you can use the same search filters in any GitHub platform. In the linked example searches, replace
github.comwith the hostname for your GitHub platform. - For a list of search syntaxes that you can add to any search qualifier to further improve your results, see Understanding the search syntax.
- Use quotations around multi-word search terms. For example, if you want to search for issues with the label "In progress," you'd search for
label:"in progress". Search is not case sensitive.
Search within commit messages
You can find commits that contain particular words in the message. For example, fix typo matches commits containing the words "fix" and "typo."
Search by author or committer
You can find commits by a particular user with the author or committer qualifiers.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
author:USERNAME | author:defunkt matches commits authored by @defunkt. |
committer:USERNAME | committer:defunkt matches commits committed by @defunkt. |
The author-name and committer-name qualifiers match commits by the name of the author or committer.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
author-name:NAME | author-name:wanstrath matches commits with "wanstrath" in the author name. |
committer-name:NAME | committer-name:wanstrath matches commits with "wanstrath" in the committer name. |
The author-email and committer-email qualifiers match commits by the author's or committer's full email address.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
author-email:EMAIL | author-email:chris@github.com matches commits authored by chris@github.com. |
committer-email:EMAIL | committer-email:chris@github.com matches commits committed by chris@github.com. |
Search by authored or committed date
Use the author-date and committer-date qualifiers to match commits authored or committed within the specified date range.
When you search for a date, you can use greater than, less than, and range qualifiers to further filter results. For more information, see Understanding the search syntax.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
author-date:YYYY-MM-DD | author-date:<2025-08-04 matches commits authored before 2025-08-04. |
committer-date:YYYY-MM-DD | committer-date:>2025-08-04 matches commits committed after 2025-08-04. |
Filter merge commits
The merge qualifier filters merge commits.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
merge:true | merge:true matches merge commits. |
merge:false | merge:false matches non-merge commits. |
Search by hash
The hash qualifier matches commits with the specified SHA-1 hash.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
hash:HASH | hash:124a9a0ee1d8f1e15e833aff432fbb3b02632105 matches commits with the hash 124a9a0ee1d8f1e15e833aff432fbb3b02632105. |
Search by parent
The parent qualifier matches commits whose parent has the specified SHA-1 hash.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
parent:HASH | parent:124a9a0ee1d8f1e15e833aff432fbb3b02632105 matches children of commits with the hash 124a9a0ee1d8f1e15e833aff432fbb3b02632105. |
Search by tree
The tree qualifier matches commits with the specified SHA-1 git tree hash.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
tree:HASH | tree:99ca967 matches commits that refer to the tree hash 99ca967. |
Search within a user's or organization's repositories
To search commits in all repositories owned by a certain user or organization, use the user or org qualifier. To search commits in a specific repository, use the repo qualifier.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
user:USERNAME | gibberish user:defunkt matches commit messages with the word "gibberish" in repositories owned by @defunkt. |
org:ORGNAME | test org:github matches commit messages with the word "test" in repositories owned by @github. |
repo:USERNAME/REPO | language repo:defunkt/gibberish matches commit messages with the word "language" in @defunkt's "gibberish" repository. |
Filter by repository visibility
The is qualifier matches commits from repositories with the specified visibility. For more information, see About repositories.
| Qualifier | Example |
|---|---|
is:public | is:public matches commits to public repositories. |
is:private | is:private matches commits to private repositories. |