git-for-windows · dscho · Sep 18, 2026 · Sep 23, 2024 · May 7, 2023 · Nov 2, 2022
diff --git a/.github/workflows/main.yml b/.github/workflows/main.yml
@@ -116,6 +116,30 @@ jobs:
     steps:
     - uses: actions/checkout@v7
     - uses: git-for-windows/setup-git-for-windows-sdk@v2
+    - name: Install GCC-compatible Rust target
+      shell: bash
+      run: |
+        # The hosted Windows runners ship a rustup-managed Rust whose
+        # default toolchain targets the MSVC ABI. That produces a
+        # `gitcore.lib` which the MinGW GCC used by the rest of the
+        # build cannot link. Install the precompiled `std` for a
+        # GCC-compatible target triple matching the MSYS2 subsystem;
+        # the Makefile selects the same triple via $(MSYSTEM) and
+        # passes it to `cargo build --target`.
+        case "$MSYSTEM" in
+        CLANGARM64) target=aarch64-pc-windows-gnullvm ;;
+        CLANG64)    target=x86_64-pc-windows-gnullvm  ;;
+        CLANG32)    target=i686-pc-windows-gnullvm    ;;
+        UCRT64)     target=x86_64-pc-windows-gnu      ;;
+        MINGW64)    target=x86_64-pc-windows-gnu      ;;
+        MINGW32)    target=i686-pc-windows-gnu        ;;
+        *) echo "::error::Unsupported MSYSTEM: $MSYSTEM"; exit 1 ;;
+        esac &&
+        rustup target add "$target" &&
+
+        # Ensure that cargo.exe is found even with the minimal SDK's restricted PATH
+        CARGO="$(type -p cargo.exe)" &&
+        echo "export PATH=\$PATH:${CARGO%/cargo.exe}" >>/etc/profile
     - name: build
       shell: bash
       env:

diff --git a/Documentation/RelNotes/2.56.0.adoc b/Documentation/RelNotes/2.56.0.adoc
@@ -148,6 +148,21 @@ UI, Workflows & Features
    drop merge commits and linearize the replayed history, mimicking 'git
    rebase --no-rebase-merges'.
 
+ * The documentation for 'git cherry-pick' has been updated to clarify
+   that the '--no-commit' option intentionally skips setting the
+   'CHERRY_PICK_HEAD' ref.  A test has also been added to ensure this
+   behavior holds even when the operation stops for conflicts.
+
+ * The 'git imap-send' command has been taught to take the '--draft'
+   option to mark uploaded messages as drafts, which helps some email
+   clients render them properly for editing and sending.
+
+ * The git rev-list command has been augmented with a '--missing-only'
+   option that filters the output to only show missing objects,
+   stripping the leading '?' character and suppressing present objects,
+   which is useful when used in combination with '--missing=print' or
+   '--missing=print-info'.
+
 
 Performance, Internal Implementation, Development Support etc.
 --------------------------------------------------------------
@@ -512,6 +527,44 @@ Performance, Internal Implementation, Development Support etc.
    during a concurrent geometric repack, and 'git replay' has been
    fixed to not segfault when reading such missing objects.
 
+ * A collection of patches from Git for Windows has been upstreamed,
+   mostly focusing on simplifying and robustifying build configurations
+   for MinGW/MSYS2, dropping obsolete compatibility options, and allowing
+   the main 'git.exe' to be used directly without the extra wrapper
+   process on Windows.
+
+ * The process of downloading packfile URIs in protocol v2 has been
+   instrumented with a Trace2 region.  This visibility allows tracking
+   the cumulative time spent downloading external packs and the number
+   of advertised URIs without emitting a separate event per pack.
+
+ * CGI helper scripts used by HTTP-related test scripts have been updated
+   to use atomic filesystem operations, preventing race conditions when
+   Apache handles concurrent requests.
+
+ * "git maintenance" triggered "rerere gc" in unappropriate times and
+   interfered with "git rebase" etc. too much.  The conditions "rerere
+   gc" gets triggered have been tweaked.
+
+ * Windows build switches from MINGW64 to URCR64 runtime starting Git
+   2.56.0; switch the cmake based build at the same time.
+
+ * The mechanism to register in-memory alternate object sources has
+   been removed, as submodule object databases are now accessed
+   natively via their own repository structures.  This simplifies
+   object database management and prepares the codebase for migrating
+   alternate tracking into the files backend.
+
+ * The consistency checks for the object database (fsck) have been
+   decoupled from the generic builtin implementation and moved into the
+   backend-specific object source layers, making them pluggable for
+   different object storage formats.
+
+ * When cross-compiling with Cargo, the output artifact is placed in a
+   target-specific subdirectory, which causes the build system to fail
+   to locate it.  The build system has been updated to respect the
+   'CARGO_BUILD_TARGET' environment variable.
+
 
 Fixes since v2.55
 -----------------
@@ -804,6 +857,55 @@ Fixes since v2.55
    trailing slashes.
    (merge 2e8a9d94b0 rs/worktree-add-basename-fixes later to maint).
 
+ * The CI job for Debian 11 has been updated to use Debian 12, as the
+   former is now out of the LTS period.
+   (merge 00fa850235 jk/ci-bump-debian-to-12 later to maint).
+
+ * The CI script to install dependencies for the documentation build
+   has been updated to install asciidoctor directly via the system
+   package manager instead of pinning to an older version via gem.
+   Additionally, an obsolete variable used for retired Azure Pipelines
+   environments has been removed.
+
+ * Teach 'am', 'revert', and 'rebase' that running 'commit --amend' or a
+   partial 'commit <paths>' makes no sense during operations that stop
+   and return control to the user to resolve conflicts left in the
+   working tree, just like 'cherry-pick' and 'merge' do.
+   (merge cc499d40e5 en/no-amend-during-conflicts later to maint).
+
+ * The error path in 'git submodule--helper' has been updated to plug a
+   memory leak when a repository handle could not be obtained,
+   leveraging an updated idempotent repo_clear().
+   (merge 2c03739705 jk/submodule-error-leak later to maint).
+
+ * Two members in "struct pathspec_item" were of type "char *", but
+   nobody updated the string through these pointers.  They have been
+   made "const char *" instead.
+   (merge 88d06b1c91 jc/pathspec-match-const later to maint).
+
+ * The gitdatamodel documentation page has been linked from a handful
+   of key documentaiton pages.
+   (merge ec602484bd kh/doc-datamodel later to maint).
+
+ * Running "git history" in a corrupt repository can (unsurprisingly)
+   segfault when a necessary tree object is not found.
+   (merge 76621488e8 jc/history-missing-tree-errorfix later to maint).
+
+ * The development helper script to lint gitlink references in the
+   documentation has been updated to avoid a newer Perl regular
+   expression syntax that breaks on older Perl versions.
+   (merge 8a631963a9 ta/lint-gitlink-older-perl-fix later to maint).
+
+ * The autostash fallback in 'git checkout -m' has been refined to only
+   retry when there are local changes.  Additionally, a blank line now
+   visually separates autostash conflict advice from the subsequent
+   branch-switch message.
+   (merge 2ba77ea828 hn/checkout-m-autostash-refine later to maint).
+
+ * The memory leak caused by not unusing the commit buffer returned by
+   repo_logmsg_reencode() during the rewording operation in 'git
+   history' has been plugged.
+
  * Other code cleanup, docfix, build fix, etc.
    (merge 026636128f ss/submittingpatches-typofix later to maint).
    (merge d2af22cc21 jc/rerere-doc-typofix later to maint).

diff --git a/Documentation/config/maintenance.adoc b/Documentation/config/maintenance.adoc
@@ -41,6 +41,7 @@ The possible strategies are:
 This repacking strategy is a full replacement for the `gc` strategy and is
 recommended for large repositories. This is the default strategy for manual
 maintenance.
++
 * `incremental`: This setting optimizes for performing small maintenance
   activities that do not delete any data. This does not schedule the `gc`
   task, but runs the `prefetch` and `commit-graph` tasks hourly, the
@@ -121,10 +122,10 @@ maintenance.rerere-gc.auto::
 	This integer config option controls how often the `rerere-gc` task
 	should be run as part of `git maintenance run --auto`. If zero, then
 	the `rerere-gc` task will not run with the `--auto` option. A negative
-	value will force the task to run every time. Otherwise, any positive
-	value implies the command will run when the "rr-cache" directory exists
-	and has at least one entry, regardless of whether it is stale or not.
-	This heuristic may be refined in the future. The default value is 1.
+	value will force the task to run every time. Otherwise, a positive
+	value implies the command should run when the estimated number of stale
+	entries that would be pruned is greater than or equal to the configured
+	value. The default value is 512.
 
 maintenance.worktree-prune.auto::
 	This integer config option controls how often the `worktree-prune` task

diff --git a/Documentation/git-cherry-pick.adoc b/Documentation/git-cherry-pick.adoc
@@ -25,7 +25,8 @@ happens:
 1. The current branch and `HEAD` pointer stay at the last commit
    successfully made.
 2. The `CHERRY_PICK_HEAD` ref is set to point at the commit that
-   introduced the change that is difficult to apply.
+   introduced the change that is difficult to apply, unless the
+   `--no-commit` option was given.
 3. Paths in which the change applied cleanly are updated both
    in the index file and in your working tree.
 4. For conflicting paths, the index file records up to three
@@ -101,6 +102,11 @@ OPTIONS
 +
 This is useful when cherry-picking more than one commits'
 effect to your index in a row.
++
+This option does not record `CHERRY_PICK_HEAD`, so a plain `git commit`
+afterwards records you as the author.  That is by design: what you are
+building is your own work, which you keep changing before committing,
+rather than a reproduction of the original commit.
 
 -s::
 --signoff::

diff --git a/Documentation/git-imap-send.adoc b/Documentation/git-imap-send.adoc
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ git-imap-send - Send a collection of patches from stdin to an IMAP folder
 SYNOPSIS
 --------
 [synopsis]
-git imap-send [-v] [-q] [--[no-]curl] [(--folder|-f) <folder>]
+git imap-send [-v] [-q] [--[no-]curl] [--[no-]draft] [(--folder|-f) <folder>]
 git imap-send --list
 
 
@@ -55,6 +55,13 @@ OPTIONS
 	using libcurl.  Ignored if Git was built with the NO_OPENSSL option
 	set.
 
+`--draft`::
+`--no-draft`::
+	Mark uploaded messages with the IMAP `\Draft` flag. The default is `--no-draft`.
++
+With libcurl, `--draft` requires version 8.13.0 or later.
+Older libcurl still uploads the message but cannot set the flag.
+
 `--list`::
 	Run the IMAP LIST command to output a list of all the folders present.
 

diff --git a/Documentation/git-stash.adoc b/Documentation/git-stash.adoc
@@ -426,6 +426,15 @@ include::includes/cmd-config-section-all.adoc[]
 :git-stash: 1
 include::config/stash.adoc[]
 
+EXIT STATUS
+-----------
+
+The `git stash` subcommands exit with status 0 on success.  The
+subcommands that apply a stash entry, i.e. `apply`, `pop` and `branch`,
+exit with status 1 when applying the stash entry resulted in conflicts,
+in which case the stash entry is left in place, and with a non-zero
+status other than 1 when they fail for other reasons.
+
 
 SEE ALSO
 --------

diff --git a/Documentation/git.adoc b/Documentation/git.adoc
@@ -25,7 +25,8 @@ and full access to internals.
 See linkgit:gittutorial[7] to get started, then see
 linkgit:giteveryday[7] for a useful minimum set of
 commands.  The link:user-manual.html[Git User's Manual] has a more
-in-depth introduction.
+in-depth introduction.  See linkgit:gitdatamodel[7] if you want to
+learn about the data model and important terminology.
 
 After you mastered the basic concepts, you can come back to this
 page to learn what commands Git offers.  You can learn more about
@@ -469,7 +470,9 @@ Higher level SCMs may provide and manage additional information in the
 
 Terminology
 -----------
-Please see linkgit:gitglossary[7].
+Please see linkgit:gitglossary[7].  See linkgit:gitdatamodel[7] for a
+discussion of the core data model, which includes important terminology
+used throughout the documentation.
 
 
 Environment Variables
@@ -1199,8 +1202,9 @@ SEE ALSO
 --------
 linkgit:gittutorial[7], linkgit:gittutorial-2[7],
 linkgit:giteveryday[7], linkgit:gitcvs-migration[7],
-linkgit:gitglossary[7], linkgit:gitcore-tutorial[7],
-linkgit:gitcli[7], link:user-manual.html[The Git User's Manual],
+linkgit:gitglossary[7], linkgit:gitdatamodel[7],
+linkgit:gitcore-tutorial[7], linkgit:gitcli[7],
+link:user-manual.html[The Git User's Manual],
 linkgit:gitworkflows[7]
 
 GIT

diff --git a/Documentation/gitdatamodel.adoc b/Documentation/gitdatamodel.adoc
@@ -300,6 +300,10 @@ $ git reflog main --date=iso --no-decorate
 4ccb6d7 main@{2025-09-29 15:16:48 -0400}: commit (initial): Initial commit
 ----
 
+SEE ALSO
+--------
+linkgit:gitglossary[7]
+
 GIT
 ---
 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite
diff --git a/Documentation/gitglossary.adoc b/Documentation/gitglossary.adoc
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ include::glossary-content.adoc[]
 
 SEE ALSO
 --------
+linkgit:gitdatamodel[7],
 linkgit:gittutorial[7],
 linkgit:gittutorial-2[7],
 linkgit:gitcvs-migration[7],

diff --git a/Documentation/glossary-content.adoc b/Documentation/glossary-content.adoc
@@ -251,7 +251,8 @@ for a more flexible and robust system to do the same thing.
 	as objects. The index is a stored version of your
 	<<def_working_tree,working tree>>. Truth be told, it can also contain a second, and even
 	a third version of a working tree, which are used
-	when <<def_merge,merging>>.
+	when <<def_merge,merging>>. See "THE INDEX" in
+	linkgit:gitdatamodel[7] for details.
 
 [[def_index_entry]]index entry::
 	The information regarding a particular file, stored in the
@@ -290,7 +291,8 @@ This commit is referred to as a "merge commit", or sometimes just a
 [[def_object]]object::
 	The unit of storage in Git. It is uniquely identified by the
 	<<def_SHA1,SHA-1>> of its contents. Consequently, an
-	object cannot be changed.
+	object cannot be changed. See "OBJECTS" in
+	linkgit:gitdatamodel[7] for details.
 
 [[def_object_database]]object database::
 	Stores a set of "objects", and an individual <<def_object,object>> is
@@ -587,12 +589,17 @@ extended in the future:
 Different subhierarchies are used for different purposes. For example,
 the `refs/heads/` hierarchy is used to represent local branches whereas
 the `refs/tags/` hierarchy is used to represent local tags..
++
+See also "REFERENCES" in linkgit:gitdatamodel[7].
 
 [[def_reflog]]reflog::
 	A reflog shows the local "history" of a ref.  In other words,
 	it can tell you what the 3rd last revision in _this_ repository
 	was, and what was the current state in _this_ repository,
-	yesterday 9:14pm.  See linkgit:git-reflog[1] for details.
+	yesterday 9:14pm.
++
+See "REFLOGS" in linkgit:gitdatamodel[7] for a short explanation of the
+format. See linkgit:git-reflog[1] for details.
 
 [[def_refspec]]refspec::
 	A "refspec" is used by <<def_fetch,fetch>> and

diff --git a/Documentation/lint-gitlink.perl b/Documentation/lint-gitlink.perl
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ sub report {
 while (<>) {
 	my $line = $_;
 	next if $line =~ /^\s*(ifn?def|endif)::/;
-	while ($line =~ m/(.{,8})((git[-a-z]+|scalar)\[(\d)*\])/g) {
+	while ($line =~ m/(.{0,8})((git[-a-z]+|scalar)\[(\d)*\])/g) {
 	    my $pos = pos $line;
 	    my ($macro, $target, $page, $section) = ($1, $2, $3, $4);
 		if ( $macro ne "linkgit:" ) {

diff --git a/Documentation/rev-list-options.adoc b/Documentation/rev-list-options.adoc
@@ -1083,6 +1083,19 @@ If some tips passed to the traversal are missing, they will be
 considered as missing too, and the traversal will ignore them. In case
 we cannot get their Object ID though, an error will be raised.
 
+`--missing-only`::
+	When used together with `--missing=print` or `--missing=print-info`,
+	suppress all output for present objects and print only the missing
+	ones.  The selected `--missing=` format is preserved (so
+	`--missing=print-info` still emits `path=` / `type=` fields), but the
+	leading ``?'' prefix used by the non-`-z` forms is omitted.  This is
+	useful for scripting, as a simpler and faster alternative to
+	post-processing the output of `--missing=print`.
++
+This option is incompatible with `--count` and `--disk-usage`.
+It is an error to use `--missing-only` without `--missing=print` or
+`--missing=print-info`.
+
 `--exclude-promisor-objects`::
 	(For internal use only.)  Prefilter object traversal at
 	promisor boundary.  This is used with partial clone.  This is

diff --git a/GIT-VERSION-GEN b/GIT-VERSION-GEN
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 #!/bin/sh
 
-DEF_VER=v2.56.0-rc0
+DEF_VER=v2.56.0-rc1
 
 LF='
 '

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
@@ -965,7 +965,7 @@ RUST_LIB_NAME = gitcore.lib
 else
 RUST_LIB_NAME = libgitcore.a
 endif
-RUST_LIB = target/$(RUST_BUILD_CONFIG)/$(RUST_LIB_NAME)
+RUST_LIB = target$(if $(CARGO_BUILD_TARGET),/$(CARGO_BUILD_TARGET))/$(RUST_BUILD_CONFIG)/$(RUST_LIB_NAME)
 endif
 
 GITLIBS = common-main.o $(LIB_FILE)