[PATCH] git-jump: pick a mode automatically when invoked without arguments

From: Greg Hurrell via GitGitGadget <gitgitgadget@gmail.com>
Date: May 8, 2026, 09:07 UTC
Message-ID: <pull.2108.git.1778231254871.gitgitgadget@gmail.com>

From: Greg Hurrell <greg.hurrell@datadoghq.com>

When `git jump` is invoked with no positional arguments (and no arguments after `--stdout`) it currently prints usage and exits with status 1.

But there are two situations where we can usefully infer the most valuable and likely mode that a user would want to use, and select it automatically when they run `git jump` without arguments:

1. When there are unmerged paths in the index, the user likely
   wants `git jump merge`.

2. When the working tree has unstaged changes, the user likely
   wants `git jump diff`.

Detect these two cases and dispatch to the corresponding mode automatically, falling back to the existing usage-and-exit behavior when neither holds.

Signed-off-by: Greg Hurrell <greg.hurrell@datadoghq.com>
---
    git-jump: pick a mode automatically when invoked without arguments

Published-As: https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/releases/tag/pr-2108%2Fwincent%2Fauto-jump-v1
Fetch-It-Via: git fetch https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git pr-2108/wincent/auto-jump-v1
Pull-Request: https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/pull/2108

 contrib/git-jump/README   |  4 ++++
 contrib/git-jump/git-jump | 16 +++++++++++++---
 2 files changed, 17 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/contrib/git-jump/README b/contrib/git-jump/README
index 3211841305..420b20b6a2 100644
--- a/contrib/git-jump/README
+++ b/contrib/git-jump/README
@@ -55,6 +55,10 @@ To use it, just drop git-jump in your PATH, and then invoke it like
 this:
 
 --------------------------------------------------
+# pick a mode automatically: "merge" if there are unmerged paths,
+# "diff" if the worktree has unstaged changes, otherwise show usage
+git jump
+
 # jump to changes not yet staged for commit
 git jump diff
 
diff --git a/contrib/git-jump/git-jump b/contrib/git-jump/git-jump
index 8d1d5d79a6..ac0ad2f037 100755
--- a/contrib/git-jump/git-jump
+++ b/contrib/git-jump/git-jump
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 usage() {
 	cat <<\EOF
-usage: git jump [--stdout] <mode> [<args>]
+usage: git jump [--stdout] [<mode>] [<args>]
 
 Jump to interesting elements in an editor.
 The <mode> parameter is one of:
@@ -99,8 +99,18 @@ while test $# -gt 0; do
 	shift
 done
 if test $# -lt 1; then
-	usage >&2
-	exit 1
+	if test "$(git rev-parse --is-inside-work-tree 2>/dev/null)" != "true"; then
+		usage >&2
+		exit 1
+	fi
+	if test -n "$(git ls-files -u)"; then
+		set -- merge
+	elif ! git diff --quiet; then
+		set -- diff
+	else
+		usage >&2
+		exit 1
+	fi
 fi
 mode=$1; shift
 type "mode_$mode" >/dev/null 2>&1 || { usage >&2; exit 1; }

base-commit: 94f057755b7941b321fd11fec1b2e3ca5313a4e0

-- 
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