Module 6 Lesson 5: Tagging and releases

In a large project, history can have thousands of commits. How do you find the exact commit that corresponds to "Version 1.0"?

You could search for a commit message, or you could use a Tag. A tag is a persistent, human-readable label that points to a specific commit. Unlike a branch, a tag does not move. It stays fixed at that specific commit forever.

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1. Types of Tags

Git supports two types of tags:

Lightweight Tags

This is just a pointer to a commit. It’s like a bookmark.

git tag v1.0-beta

Annotated Tags (Recommended)

These are stored as full objects in the Git database. They contain the tagger name, email, date, and a tagging message.

• Use case: Official releases.

git tag -a v1.2.0 -m "Release version 1.2.0"

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2. Listing and Searching Tags

Shows all tags in alphabetical order:

git tag

Search for tags that match a pattern:

git tag -l "v1.*"

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3. Sharing Your Tags

By default, the git push command doesn't send tags to remote servers. You have to explicitly push them:

# Push a specific tag
git push origin v1.2.0

# Push ALL your tags at once
git push origin --tags

Once pushed, services like GitHub will automatically create a "Release" for those tags, allowing users to download .zip files of the project at that specific version.

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4. Tagging Old Commits

Did you forget to tag a release? You can tag a commit from the past by providing its ID:

git tag -a v1.0.0 9fceb02

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Module 6 Advanced Features Practice Exercises

It’s time to test your expert Git skills:

1. Stashing: Make a change, stash it, then list your stashes to verify it's there.
2. Cherry-pick: Create a new branch fix-branch, make a commit called "The important fix", and then cherry-pick just that commit into main.
3. Interactive Rebase: Make 3 small commits on a branch, then use git rebase -i to squash them into one single commit with a descriptive message.
4. Tagging: Annotate your final squashed commit with the tag v1.0.0-practice.
5. Verification: Run git log --oneline --graph --decorate. You should see your commit history looking clean, with your tag clearly pointing to the top commit!

Checkpoint: If you successfully performed a squash and a tag, you have officially moved beyond "Basic Git" into the "Advanced User" category!

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Summary

In this lesson, we established:

• Tags are fixed markers for important milestones (like versions).
• Annotated tags (-a) are preferred for official releases.
• Tags must be pushed separately using --tags.
• git log --decorate shows you exactly where your tags and branch pointers are in history.

Module Complete! You have mastered the most powerful features of the Git CLI.

Next Module: We’ll move into the world of "Project Architecture." Welcome to Module 7: Git Submodules, where we’ll learn how to handle repositories inside other repositories.