Was trying to understand the merge history of llmswap before rebasing. Regular git log was just a wall of text - impossible to see the branch structure.

Discovered --oneline --graph flags:

# Regular log - hard to follow
git log
commit a1b2c3d Author: Me Date: ... Long message...

# Visual log - see the structure!
git log --oneline --graph

* a1b2c3d (HEAD -> main) Add caching feature
* | b2c3d4e Merge pull request #12
|\|
| * c3d4e5f Fix provider error handling
| * d4e5f6g Update tests
|/
* e5f6g7h Initial commit

The graph shows:

  • * commits
  • | branch lines
  • / and \ merges
  • Branch relationships

I added an alias to my .gitconfig:

git config --global alias.lg "log --oneline --graph --all --decorate"

# Now just:
git lg

Makes understanding complex merge histories so much easier. Can see exactly where branches diverged and merged back.