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+git-describe(1)
+===============
+
+NAME
+----
+git-describe - Show the most recent tag that is reachable from a commit
+
+
+SYNOPSIS
+--------
+[verse]
+'git describe' [--all] [--tags] [--contains] [--abbrev=<n>] <committish>...
+'git describe' [--all] [--tags] [--contains] [--abbrev=<n>] --dirty[=<mark>]
+
+DESCRIPTION
+-----------
+The command finds the most recent tag that is reachable from a
+commit.  If the tag points to the commit, then only the tag is
+shown.  Otherwise, it suffixes the tag name with the number of
+additional commits on top of the tagged object and the
+abbreviated object name of the most recent commit.
+
+By default (without --all or --tags) `git describe` only shows
+annotated tags.  For more information about creating annotated tags
+see the -a and -s options to linkgit:git-tag[1].
+
+OPTIONS
+-------
+<committish>...::
+	Committish object names to describe.
+
+--dirty[=<mark>]::
+	Describe the working tree.
+	It means describe HEAD and appends <mark> (`-dirty` by
+	default) if the working tree is dirty.
+
+--all::
+	Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any ref
+	found in `.git/refs/`.  This option enables matching
+	any known branch, remote-tracking branch, or lightweight tag.
+
+--tags::
+	Instead of using only the annotated tags, use any tag
+	found in `.git/refs/tags`.  This option enables matching
+	a lightweight (non-annotated) tag.
+
+--contains::
+	Instead of finding the tag that predates the commit, find
+	the tag that comes after the commit, and thus contains it.
+	Automatically implies --tags.
+
+--abbrev=<n>::
+	Instead of using the default 7 hexadecimal digits as the
+	abbreviated object name, use <n> digits, or as many digits
+	as needed to form a unique object name.  An <n> of 0
+	will suppress long format, only showing the closest tag.
+
+--candidates=<n>::
+	Instead of considering only the 10 most recent tags as
+	candidates to describe the input committish consider
+	up to <n> candidates.  Increasing <n> above 10 will take
+	slightly longer but may produce a more accurate result.
+	An <n> of 0 will cause only exact matches to be output.
+
+--exact-match::
+	Only output exact matches (a tag directly references the
+	supplied commit).  This is a synonym for --candidates=0.
+
+--debug::
+	Verbosely display information about the searching strategy
+	being employed to standard error.  The tag name will still
+	be printed to standard out.
+
+--long::
+	Always output the long format (the tag, the number of commits
+	and the abbreviated commit name) even when it matches a tag.
+	This is useful when you want to see parts of the commit object name
+	in "describe" output, even when the commit in question happens to be
+	a tagged version.  Instead of just emitting the tag name, it will
+	describe such a commit as v1.2-0-gdeadbee (0th commit since tag v1.2
+	that points at object deadbee....).
+
+--match <pattern>::
+	Only consider tags matching the given pattern (can be used to avoid
+	leaking private tags made from the repository).
+
+--always::
+	Show uniquely abbreviated commit object as fallback.
+
+EXAMPLES
+--------
+
+With something like git.git current tree, I get:
+
+	[torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe parent
+	v1.0.4-14-g2414721
+
+i.e. the current head of my "parent" branch is based on v1.0.4,
+but since it has a few commits on top of that,
+describe has added the number of additional commits ("14") and
+an abbreviated object name for the commit itself ("2414721")
+at the end.
+
+The number of additional commits is the number
+of commits which would be displayed by "git log v1.0.4..parent".
+The hash suffix is "-g" + 7-char abbreviation for the tip commit
+of parent (which was `2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6`).
+The "g" prefix stands for "git" and is used to allow describing the version of
+a software depending on the SCM the software is managed with. This is useful
+in an environment where people may use different SCMs.
+
+Doing a 'git describe' on a tag-name will just show the tag name:
+
+	[torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe v1.0.4
+	v1.0.4
+
+With --all, the command can use branch heads as references, so
+the output shows the reference path as well:
+
+	[torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 v1.0.5^2
+	tags/v1.0.0-21-g975b
+
+	[torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --all --abbrev=4 HEAD^
+	heads/lt/describe-7-g975b
+
+With --abbrev set to 0, the command can be used to find the
+closest tagname without any suffix:
+
+	[torvalds@g5 git]$ git describe --abbrev=0 v1.0.5^2
+	tags/v1.0.0
+
+Note that the suffix you get if you type these commands today may be
+longer than what Linus saw above when he ran these commands, as your
+git repository may have new commits whose object names begin with
+975b that did not exist back then, and "-g975b" suffix alone may not
+be sufficient to disambiguate these commits.
+
+
+SEARCH STRATEGY
+---------------
+
+For each committish supplied, 'git describe' will first look for
+a tag which tags exactly that commit.  Annotated tags will always
+be preferred over lightweight tags, and tags with newer dates will
+always be preferred over tags with older dates.  If an exact match
+is found, its name will be output and searching will stop.
+
+If an exact match was not found, 'git describe' will walk back
+through the commit history to locate an ancestor commit which
+has been tagged.  The ancestor's tag will be output along with an
+abbreviation of the input committish's SHA1.
+
+If multiple tags were found during the walk then the tag which
+has the fewest commits different from the input committish will be
+selected and output.  Here fewest commits different is defined as
+the number of commits which would be shown by `git log tag..input`
+will be the smallest number of commits possible.
+
+GIT
+---
+Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite