Git-Notes Integration (experimental in 25.1)

This article explains how to configure and enable SmartGit’s Notes features through ordinary Git configuration files.

Contents

• Enabling Notes features in SmartGit on a repository
• A minimal [smartgit-notes] configuration
• smartgit-notes section reference
• Example configurations
  • 1 – Override Classic commits notes
  • 2 – Separate code-reviews category with filtering
  • 3 – Multiple categories side-by-side
• Advanced Configurations
  • Configuring automatic note synchronization with remotes
  • Copying Git notes during rewriting activity (e.g. rebase)
  • Removing Git Notes support from a repository
• Configuration best practices

Enabling Notes features in SmartGit on a repository

In order for SmartGit notes to be enabled, SmartGit needs to find either:

• The presence of refs/notes/commits, which is the default Git notes category ref (e.g. as created by a git notes add -m '..' command).
• One or more [smartgit-notes] subsections defined in the Git configuration.

If refs/notes/commits is found, SmartGit automatically creates an implicit notes category called “Notes” that tracks refs/notes/commits.

A minimal [smartgit-notes] configuration

Add one or more subsections under smartgit-notes to describe the categories of notes you want SmartGit to show:

[smartgit-notes "<category-id>"]
    # all keys are optional – see reference below
    ref              = <notes-ref>
    graphMessageRegex= <regex>
    color            = <RRGGBB>

SmartGit reads these directives from the repository’s local .git/config, the user-wide ~/.gitconfig, or the system config – and reloads changes automatically for the local repo. A restart is only needed when you edit user or system-wide configs.

smartgit-notes section reference

Each notes category configured in SmartGit requires the following configuration:

• A [smartgit-notes "<category-id>"] configuration section, where <category-id> is the user-friendly name for the category which will appear in the SmartGit UI.
• One or more of the below keys, customizing the appearance in SmartGit

Example configurations

1 – Override Classic commits notes

The name and colour of the default commits ref category can be overridden in the SmartGit UI by adding a smartgit-notes section for the default ref = commits category.

[smartgit-notes "Personal Notes"]
    # same as the default, but defined explicitly
    ref              = commits
    color = 5DADEC   # light-blue in the graph

2 – Separate code-reviews category with filtering

[smartgit-notes "reviews"]
    ref               = code-reviews        # stored at refs/notes/code-reviews
    color             = FF8800              # orange

3 – Multiple categories side-by-side

[smartgit-notes "qa"]
    ref               = qa                  # refs/notes/qa
    graphMessageRegex = ^State: (.*)        # extract review state (pass/fail) directly to graph
    color             = 66CC66              # green

[smartgit-notes "design"]
    ref   = ux-design   # refs/notes/ux-design
    color = CC66CC      # purple

Advanced Configurations

Configuring automatic note synchronization with remotes

By amending the configuration for a remote’s fetch and push settings, it is possible to ensure notes remain synchronized with the remote whenever a push or fetch is performed.

[remote "origin"]
  url = ...
  ...
  fetch = refs/notes/*:refs/notes/*
  push = refs/notes/*:refs/notes/*

Using the __ name, or the `*` wildcard to specify which categories of note are to be synchronized.

Copying Git notes during rewriting activity (e.g. rebase)

As notes are attached to specific commit ids, any time the commit history is rewritten, e.g. to squash or other rebase activity, any notes attached to rewritten commits will become orphaned from the resulting commit.

This orphan note behavior can be changed by adding a rewriteRef configuration for the repository, e.g.:

[notes]
  rewriteRef = refs/notes/*

Will cause any notes on rewritten commits to be copied to the rewritten commit after a rebase. If there is more than one note in the same category to be copied to the rewritten commit, the contents of the notes will be appended in sequence and attached to the new commit.

Removing Git Notes support from a repository

Deleting all git notes in a category from a repository does not by itself remove the refs/notes/<category> ref from the repository. As a result, SmartGit will still enable git notes functionality if the refs/notes/commits ref is still present in the repository, even if no notes are present.

To completely remove notes support, run the following git update-ref -d command in the repo, e.g. to remove the default commits category:

git update-ref -d refs/notes/commits

Configuration best practices

1. Global vs. local – You can keep common categories (e.g. commits) in ~/.gitconfig but declare project-specific ones in each repo’s .git/config.
2. Ref naming – Use short, descriptive subsection names; if you omit ref, SmartGit will fall back to that name, keeping your config concise.
3. Color palette – Pick sufficiently different colours so each category is recognisable in the log graph.
4. Regular expressions – Keep graphMessageRegex simple and anchored (^…) to avoid accidental matches that hide or show unexpected commits.

With these settings in place you can toggle the notes display in SmartGit’s Log and Standard windows and enjoy a colour-coded, filtered view of your notes alongside normal commit data.