1 files changed, 97 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/technical/commit-graph-format.txt b/Documentation/technical/commit-graph-format.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..cc0474ba3e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/technical/commit-graph-format.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,97 @@
+Git commit graph format
+=======================
+
+The Git commit graph stores a list of commit OIDs and some associated
+metadata, including:
+
+- The generation number of the commit. Commits with no parents have
+  generation number 1; commits with parents have generation number
+  one more than the maximum generation number of its parents. We
+  reserve zero as special, and can be used to mark a generation
+  number invalid or as "not computed".
+
+- The root tree OID.
+
+- The commit date.
+
+- The parents of the commit, stored using positional references within
+  the graph file.
+
+These positional references are stored as unsigned 32-bit integers
+corresponding to the array position within the list of commit OIDs. Due
+to some special constants we use to track parents, we can store at most
+(1 << 30) + (1 << 29) + (1 << 28) - 1 (around 1.8 billion) commits.
+
+== Commit graph files have the following format:
+
+In order to allow extensions that add extra data to the graph, we organize
+the body into "chunks" and provide a binary lookup table at the beginning
+of the body. The header includes certain values, such as number of chunks
+and hash type.
+
+All 4-byte numbers are in network order.
+
+HEADER:
+
+  4-byte signature:
+      The signature is: {'C', 'G', 'P', 'H'}
+
+  1-byte version number:
+      Currently, the only valid version is 1.
+
+  1-byte Hash Version (1 = SHA-1)
+      We infer the hash length (H) from this value.
+
+  1-byte number (C) of "chunks"
+
+  1-byte (reserved for later use)
+     Current clients should ignore this value.
+
+CHUNK LOOKUP:
+
+  (C + 1) * 12 bytes listing the table of contents for the chunks:
+      First 4 bytes describe the chunk id. Value 0 is a terminating label.
+      Other 8 bytes provide the byte-offset in current file for chunk to
+      start. (Chunks are ordered contiguously in the file, so you can infer
+      the length using the next chunk position if necessary.) Each chunk
+      ID appears at most once.
+
+  The remaining data in the body is described one chunk at a time, and
+  these chunks may be given in any order. Chunks are required unless
+  otherwise specified.
+
+CHUNK DATA:
+
+  OID Fanout (ID: {'O', 'I', 'D', 'F'}) (256 * 4 bytes)
+      The ith entry, F[i], stores the number of OIDs with first
+      byte at most i. Thus F[255] stores the total
+      number of commits (N).
+
+  OID Lookup (ID: {'O', 'I', 'D', 'L'}) (N * H bytes)
+      The OIDs for all commits in the graph, sorted in ascending order.
+
+  Commit Data (ID: {'C', 'D', 'A', 'T' }) (N * (H + 16) bytes)
+    * The first H bytes are for the OID of the root tree.
+    * The next 8 bytes are for the positions of the first two parents
+      of the ith commit. Stores value 0x7000000 if no parent in that
+      position. If there are more than two parents, the second value
+      has its most-significant bit on and the other bits store an array
+      position into the Large Edge List chunk.
+    * The next 8 bytes store the generation number of the commit and
+      the commit time in seconds since EPOCH. The generation number
+      uses the higher 30 bits of the first 4 bytes, while the commit
+      time uses the 32 bits of the second 4 bytes, along with the lowest
+      2 bits of the lowest byte, storing the 33rd and 34th bit of the
+      commit time.
+
+  Large Edge List (ID: {'E', 'D', 'G', 'E'}) [Optional]
+      This list of 4-byte values store the second through nth parents for
+      all octopus merges. The second parent value in the commit data stores
+      an array position within this list along with the most-significant bit
+      on. Starting at that array position, iterate through this list of commit
+      positions for the parents until reaching a value with the most-significant
+      bit on. The other bits correspond to the position of the last parent.
+
+TRAILER:
+
+	H-byte HASH-checksum of all of the above.