Getting latest tag on git repository

get-latest-tag-on-git.sh

# 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.
git describe

# With --abbrev set to 0, the command can be used to find the closest tagname without any suffix:
git describe --abbrev=0

# other examples
git describe --abbrev=0 --tags # gets tag from current branch
git describe --tags `git rev-list --tags --max-count=1` # gets tags across all branches, not just the current branch

This does not work for me either. I have a list of tags like the one below

$git tag
v1.1.1
v1.1.2
v1.1.3
v1.2.0-rc.1
v1.2.0-rc.2
v1.2.0-rc.3
v1.2.0-rc.4
v1.2.0-rc.5
v1.2.0-rc.6
v1.2.0-rc.7

The tags RC are generated automatically, then I am tagging manually for the release version -> git tag v1.2.0 and doing a git describe I am expecting the v1.2.0 since it is the tag I just added. However, I am getting the v1.2.0-rc.7

Any idea why?

$git describe
v1.2.0-rc.7

$git tag
v0.1.0-rc.1
v0.1.0-rc.2
v0.1.0-rc.3
v1.0.0
v1.1.0
v1.1.0-rc.1
v1.1.1
v1.1.2
v1.1.3
v1.2.0           <- here is the lastest tag I added. As per the git documentation it lists the tags in alphabetical order which makes senses
v1.2.0-rc.1
v1.2.0-rc.2
v1.2.0-rc.3
v1.2.0-rc.4
v1.2.0-rc.5
v1.2.0-rc.6
v1.2.0-rc.7

The tag v1.2.0-rc.7 and v1.2.0 are on the same commit

@tavo-sanchez
That's exactly because both tags are on the same commit.
git rev-list --tags --max-count=1 gets the commit ID for the latest tag, and then git describe --tags [COMMIT_ID] displays the tags on this commit.

Yeah, this is tricky. To get the “latest,” you really have to define what you actually mean by “latest,” for example:

• Most recent in time? Add --sort=committerdate flag.
• Largest version number? Pipe through | sort -V (for version friendly sorting)

This is important, because in some repositories, depending on the branching structure and amount of concurrent supported major versions, you may easily have a version tag like 1.2.3 added chronologically after version 2.3.4. By default, git will simply sort tags lexicographically (er, alphabetical) and that can even be changed based on your user settings.

Ideally, you just wanna sort consistently, across machines and developers for a consistent experience (e.g. like for tagging and shipping builds). For example:

# Most recent by date
git tag --sort=committerdate | tail -1

# Largest version number (assuming ALL your tags are numbered... see below)
git tag | sort -V

In my case, I prefer to filter out tags that start with a number (my system is 1.2.3, but your system could be v1.2.3) because I will often work in repositories that may contain non-numbered/non-version tags (which will become clutter for versioning). So depending on your needs, that would just become:

# Pure number, e.g. 1.2.3
git tag --sort=committerdate | grep -E '^[0-9]' | tail -1
git tag  | grep -E '^[0-9]' | sort -V | tail -1

# Or with v-prefix, e.g. v1.2.3
git tag --sort=committerdate | grep -E '^v[0-9]' | tail -1
git tag  | grep -E '^v[0-9]' | sort -V | tail -1

# Don’t forget: You can even use -v flag in grep to exclude! E.g.
git tag  | grep -E '^v[0-9]' | grep -v '-rc' | sort -V | tail -1

Hopefully this helps someone else. I know I studied and wrote most of this up for my own reference too! 😎

@patricknelson beautiful, thanks! 👌

Adding on top of @patricknelson excellent response, you can omit grep entirely by providing a pattern to git tag.

# Equivalent to grep -E '^[0-9]'
git tag --sort=committerdate --list '[0-9]*'

Additionally, if you are on PowerShell, you may want to replace tail -1 with Select-Object -Last 1 to fetch that last item.

# Equivalent to tail -1
git tag --sort=v:refname | Select-Object -Last 1

@patricknelson great explanation, thanks!

@nfantone nice! Thank you!

This is how you get the latest tagged version, but remove the v...

git tag --sort=committerdate | grep -E '[0-9]' | tail -1 | cut -b 2-7

I had more accurate results with taggerdate as a sort key instead of committerdate
git tag --sort=taggerdate | tail -1

I had more accurate results with taggerdate as a sort key instead of committerdate
git tag --sort=taggerdate | tail -1

Yes or the creatordate, the committerdate doesn't work for me.
And don't forget that you can add - (e.g. --sort=-taggerdate) before to sort it as newer -> older

For the latest tag on remote I'm doing this:

$ git ls-remote --tags --sort=committerdate | grep -o 'v.*' | sort -r

v1.2.3
v1.2.2
v1.2.1
v1.2.0
v1.1.0

Or, what I wanted, just the single latest one:

 $ git ls-remote --tags --sort=committerdate | grep -o 'v.*' | sort -r | head -1

v1.2.3

Faced with problem after using taggerdate and old git version on CI:

git tag --list "RC;*" --sort=taggerdate | tail -1
error: unsupported sort specification ‘taggerdate’

Found a better way to do it (git describe and --abbrev=0 argument):

git describe --abbrev=0
git describe --abbrev=0 --match "RC;*"

You can find a same example on https://git-scm.com/docs/git-describe page:

The difference is, that git will take the latest tag for this branch (not for all branches).

A similar approach uses lerna for getting the last tag:
https://github.com/lerna/lerna/blob/f2c3a92fe41b6fdc5d11269f0f2c3e27761b4c85/utils/collect-updates/collect-updates.js#L31
https://github.com/lerna/lerna/blob/f2c3a92fe41b6fdc5d11269f0f2c3e27761b4c85/utils/describe-ref/lib/describe-ref.js#L36

In my case (Git v2.25), the command git describe --tags $(git rev-list --tags --max-count=1) returns the latest tag.

What's wrong with a simple git tag -l | tail -1?

It's sorted alphabetically...

+1 to @joseluisq. Thx man!

Just in case anyone is looking for how to update package.json's version with the latest tag:

let fs = require('fs');
const { exec, execSync } = require('child_process');

if (fs.existsSync('./package.json')) {
  var package = require('./package.json');
  let currentVersion = package.version;

  exec('git tag --sort=committerdate | tail -1', (error, stdout) => {
    if (error) {
      console.error(`exec error: ${error}`);
      return;
    }

    let newVersion = stdout.trim();
    package.version = newVersion;
    fs.writeFileSync('./package.json', JSON.stringify(package, null, 2));

    execSync("git commit -am 'Bump version '" + newVersion);

    console.log('Version updated', currentVersion, '=>', newVersion);
  });
}

Not working with gitlab, got the usage information.

$ git rev-list --tags --max-count=1
usage: git rev-list [OPTION] <commit-id>... [ -- paths... ]
  limiting output:
    --max-count=<n>
    --max-age=<epoch>
    --min-age=<epoch>
    --sparse
    --no-merges
    --min-parents=<n>
    --no-min-parents
    --max-parents=<n>
    --no-max-parents
    --remove-empty
    --all
    --branches
    --tags
    --remotes
    --stdin
    --quiet
  ordering output:
    --topo-order
    --date-order
    --reverse
  formatting output:
    --parents
    --children
    --objects | --objects-edge
    --unpacked
    --header | --pretty
    --abbrev=<n> | --no-abbrev
    --abbrev-commit
    --left-right
  special purpose:
    --bisect
    --bisect-vars
    --bisect-all

Maybe someone will tell me how to get the last tag, or if there are no tags in the branch - the initial commit?

I would like to know how the last tag that was tagged before a specific tag. Meaning lets say I have.

2.0.0
1.5.10
1.5.8
1.0.1

I like to say git --last-tag-b4="1.5.10" and it should give me 1.5.8. When 1.5.9 was never created or deleted.

@cawa-93 why not just git tag | sort -V | tail -1? i.e. Sort tags by version and just take the last one (tail -1). If that's empty, then git tag returned nothing.

@nextgenthemes The best (hacky) way I can think of quickly is to use version sort and then use grep to to find an exact match for the version you know already exists (a possible shortcoming if that exact version you're looking for isn't already present).

# 1. Pull out tags
# 2. Use version sort
# 3. Use grep to find the known version, ensuring we also output the line before
# 4. Just take the first line (the line before the match)

git tag | sort -V | grep -B 1 1.5.8 | head -1

Alternative, you could probably use awk to use a comparison operator (e.g. awk '$1 < NUMBER { print }') but I don't know how to do that when the number has multiple dots in it, nor in a way that would be version safe... 😞

@patricknelson Thanks. I was thinking about some pipe thing. This actually reads and works quite nice. Not sure why I am obsessing trying to do it with more git and less gnu right now. Tell me to stop ;)

One could also do, without using git: curl -s GET https://api.github.com/repos/aws/aws-cli/tags | jq -r '.[].name' | head -n1

One could also do, without using git: curl -s GET https://api.github.com/repos/aws/aws-cli/tags | jq -r '.[].name' | head -n1

add per_page params curl -s GET https://api.github.com/repos/cloudreve/Cloudreve/tags\?per_page\=1 | jq -r '.[].name'

Ran into an issue where we accidentally made two tags on the same commit, in that case this method returns the first tag it encounters, which is the earliest tag, not the latest.

You can get the most recent commit by doing git tag --sort=committerdate | tail -1

The commit date sort way is unreliable, because you don't know if someone create a wrong tag.

Using:

git describe --tags git rev-list --tags --max-count=1

returns me the last tag with a commit.

but if I create a new tag from an older commit (without a new commit), it will return the wrong tag: the last tag with a commit!

Using:

git tag --sort=committerdate | tail -1

returns me a tag created 1 year ago, I dont know why...

My real last tag:

can someone help me to return the last tag created?

@MarcusPetri found this on StackOverflow: https://stackoverflow.com/a/6270112/899075

git for-each-ref --sort=creatordate --format '%(refname) %(creatordate)' refs/tags

But are you interested in when the tag itself was actually created, or, are you really just interested in seeing the semantically largest tag number (see number sorting below)? The reason I ask is because it's technically possible for you to currently be on v2 but then at a later date create the tag v1.1 (which is obviously smaller) well after both v1 and v2 already existed. That command would sort it as v1, v2, v1.1 instead of the semantic ordering of v1, v1.1, v2 and etc.

Example of naïve sort vs. version sorting:

# Naïve sort
$ sort test/test.txt
0
1.01
10.1
2

vs.

# Version sort
$ sort -V test/test.txt
0
1.01
2
10.1

@MarcusPetri found this on StackOverflow: https://stackoverflow.com/a/6270112/899075

git for-each-ref --sort=creatordate --format '%(refname) %(creatordate)' refs/tags

But are you interested in when the tag itself was actually created, or, are you really just interested in seeing the semantically largest tag number (see number sorting below)? The reason I ask is because it's technically possible for you to currently be on v2 but then at a later date create the tag v1.1 (which is obviously smaller) well after both v1 and v2 already existed. That command would sort it as v1, v2, v1.1 instead of the semantic ordering of v1, v1.1, v2 and etc.

Example of naïve sort vs. version sorting:

# Naïve sort
$ sort test/test.txt
0
1.01
10.1
2

vs.

# Version sort
$ sort -V test/test.txt
0
1.01
2
10.1

Thanks for the answer.

I just really need the last tag created, I don't care if it has v1, v2...

git tag | sort -g | tail -1

Get the latest tags filtered by branch in descending order, this one looks for latest tags in desc order from develop branch:
git tag --merged develop --sort=committerdate | sort -V desc

git ls-remote --tags --sort=committerdate

@the-glima

important: (from https://git-scm.com/docs/git-ls-remote.html)
_but be aware keys like committerdate that require access to the objects themselves will not work for refs whose objects have not yet been fetched from the remote, and will give a missing object error.

I get this for example on:

git ls-remote --tags --sort=committerdate "https://github.com/box/box-java-sdk"
git ls-remote --tags --sort=committerdate "https://github.com/derailed/k9s"

Get:

tilo@mypc:/mnt/c/GHreps$ git ls-remote --tags --sort=committerdate "https://github.com/derailed/k9s"
fatal: missing object 25b364dd96ae53e70b9639a20732647fd4bb23a7 for refs/tags/0.1.0
tilo@mypc:/mnt/c/GHreps$ git ls-remote --tags --sort=committerdate "https://github.com/box/box-java-sdk"
fatal: missing object 9a8b39475952def867a5b68ab92e7cd45bb3d8e0 for refs/tags/v0.1

If the remote is GitHub and there's an associated release for the tag, why not just use the GitHub API?

$ tag="$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/box/box-java-sdk/releases/latest | jq -r '.tag_name')"
$ echo $tag
v4.0.1

Just deleted a stupid long ass comment. Just want to warn about git tag --sort=committerdate it does not work correctly with the tag command for whatever reason. But this does work.

git for-each-ref --sort=creatordate --format '%(refname) %(creatordate)' refs/tags

COMPLETELY different result that makes no sense to me git tag --sort=committerdate

However git tag --sort=taggerdate is basically what I always looked for, what should be the default output for git-tag IMG. I also hate how it paginates the output with lessor whatever by default.

Again, be warned about committerdate ! There is somebody above that had issue as well I think because of this. Even if my commit of things I tagged days or maybe even a week later. I makes absolutely no sense to me WTF this produces. Maybe my memory is just bad and it all makes sense, well probably actually. I think to much about this shit.

@eggbean I like that idea, but it hits an auth wall for private/enterprise repos

@arderyp There are a few different ways to authenticate. Have you tried the gh cli tool?

Thanks! :)