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GIT-HELP(1)			   Git Manual			     GIT-HELP(1)

NAME
     git-help - Display help information about Git

SYNOPSIS
     git help [-a|--all] [--[no-]verbose] [--[no-]external-commands] [--[no-]aliases]
     git help [[-i|--info] [-m|--man] [-w|--web]] [<command>|<doc>]
     git help [-g|--guides]
     git help [-c|--config]
     git help [--user-interfaces]
     git help [--developer-interfaces]

DESCRIPTION
     With  no  options	and no <command> or <doc> given, the synopsis of the git
     command and a list of the most commonly used Git commands	are  printed  on
     the standard output.

     If  the  option --all or -a is given, all available commands are printed on
     the standard output.

     If the option --guides or -g is given, a list of the Git concept guides  is
     also printed on the standard output.

     If a command or other documentation is given, the relevant manual page will
     be  brought  up.  The  man program is used by default for this purpose, but
     this can be overridden by other options or configuration variables.

     If an alias is given, git shows the definition of	the  alias  on	standard
     output.  To  get the manual page for the aliased command, use git <command>
     --help.

     Note that git --help ... is identical to git help ... because the former is
     internally converted into the latter.

     To display the git(1) man page, use git help git.

     This page can be displayed with git help help or git help --help.

OPTIONS
     -a, --all
	 Print all the available commands on the standard output.

     --no-external-commands
	 When used with --all, exclude the listing of external "git-*"	commands
	 found in the $PATH.

     --no-aliases
	 When used with --all, exclude the listing of configured aliases.

     --verbose
	 When  used  with  --all, print description for all recognized commands.
	 This is the default.

     -c, --config
	 List all available configuration variables. This is a short summary  of
	 the list in git-config(1).

     -g, --guides
	 Print a list of the Git concept guides on the standard output.

     --user-interfaces
	 Print	a list of the repository, command and file interfaces documenta-
	 tion on the standard output.

	 In-repository file interfaces such as .git/info/exclude are  documented
	 here  (see  gitrepository-layout(5)),	as well as in-tree configuration
	 such as .mailmap (see gitmailmap(5)).

	 This section of the documentation also  covers  general  or  widespread
	 user-interface  conventions (e.g.  gitcli(7)), and pseudo-configuration
	 such as the file-based .git/hooks/* interface described in githooks(5).

     --developer-interfaces
	 Print a list of file formats, protocols and other developer  interfaces
	 documentation on the standard output.

     -i, --info
	 Display  manual  page for the command in the info format. The info pro-
	 gram will be used for that purpose.

     -m, --man
	 Display manual page for the command in the man format. This option  may
	 be  used to override a value set in the help.format configuration vari-
	 able.

	 By default the man program will be used to display the manual page, but
	 the man.viewer configuration variable may be used to choose other  dis-
	 play programs (see below).

     -w, --web
	 Display  manual  page	for  the command in the web (HTML) format. A web
	 browser will be used for that purpose.

	 The web browser can  be  specified  using  the  configuration	variable
	 help.browser,	or  web.browser  if the former is not set. If neither of
	 these config variables  is  set,  the	git  web--browse  helper  script
	 (called   by	git  help)  will  pick	a  suitable  default.  See  git-
	 web--browse(1) for more information about this.

CONFIGURATION VARIABLES
   help.format
     If no command-line option is passed, the help.format configuration variable
     will be checked. The following values are supported for this variable; they
     make git help behave as their corresponding command- line option:

     *	 "man" corresponds to -m|--man,

     *	 "info" corresponds to -i|--info,

     *	 "web" or "html" correspond to -w|--web.

   help.browser, web.browser, and browser.<tool>.path
     The help.browser, web.browser and browser.<tool>.path will also be  checked
     if the web format is chosen (either by command-line option or configuration
     variable).   See	-w|--web   in	the   OPTIONS  section	above  and  git-
     web--browse(1).

   man.viewer
     The man.viewer configuration variable will be checked if the man format  is
     chosen. The following values are currently supported:

     *	 "man": use the man program as usual,

     *	 "woman": use emacsclient to launch the "woman" mode in emacs (this only
	 works starting with emacsclient versions 22),

     *	 "konqueror":  use kfmclient to open the man page in a new konqueror tab
	 (see Note about konqueror below).

     Values  for  other  tools	can  be  used  if  there  is   a   corresponding
     man.<tool>.cmd configuration entry (see below).

     Multiple  values  may  be	given  to the man.viewer configuration variable.
     Their corresponding programs will be tried in the order listed in the  con-
     figuration file.

     For example, this configuration:

		 [man]
			 viewer = konqueror
			 viewer = woman

     will try to use konqueror first. But this may fail (for example, if DISPLAY
     is not set) and in that case emacs' woman mode will be tried.

     If everything fails, or if no viewer is configured, the viewer specified in
     the  GIT_MAN_VIEWER  environment variable will be tried. If that fails too,
     the man program will be tried anyway.

   man.<tool>.path
     You can explicitly provide a full path to your preferred man viewer by set-
     ting the configuration variable man.<tool>.path. For example, you can  con-
     figure the absolute path to konqueror by setting man.konqueror.path. Other-
     wise, git help assumes the tool is available in PATH.

   man.<tool>.cmd
     When  the	man viewer, specified by the man.viewer configuration variables,
     is not among the supported ones, then the corresponding man.<tool>.cmd con-
     figuration variable will be looked up. If this  variable  exists  then  the
     specified tool will be treated as a custom command and a shell eval will be
     used to run the command with the man page passed as arguments.

   Note about konqueror
     When  konqueror  is  specified in the man.viewer configuration variable, we
     launch kfmclient to try to open the man page on an already opened konqueror
     in a new tab if possible.

     For consistency, we also try such a trick if man.konqueror.path is  set  to
     something	like  A_PATH_TO/konqueror.  That  means  we  will  try to launch
     A_PATH_TO/kfmclient instead.

     If you really want to use konqueror, then you can use  something  like  the
     following:

		 [man]
			 viewer = konq

		 [man "konq"]
			 cmd = A_PATH_TO/konqueror

   Note about git config --global
     Note  that  all  these configuration variables should probably be set using
     the --global flag, for example like this:

	 $ git config --global help.format web
	 $ git config --global web.browser firefox

     as they are probably more user specific than repository specific. See  git-
     config(1) for more information about this.

GIT
     Part of the git(1) suite

Git 2.53.0			   2026-02-01			     GIT-HELP(1)

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