Understanding why Git defaults to show author date and not committer date

4 messages between Jul 10, 2026 and Jul 12, 2026, from Omri Sarig, Jeff King, Junio C Hamano, Oswald Buddenhagen.

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Omri SarigJul 10, 2026, 15:08 UTC on lore

Hello,

I've had several discussions with fellow developers, and I found out that many of them are somewhat confused about the date shown when they look at the Git log. In our main workflow, we are mostly using a rebase strategy to get commits into a main branch, so I can understand their confusion when looking at the default log view - dates are moving back and forth, and it's not possible to know when a commit was introduced to the main branch. I understand this is one of many workflows, but in my personal experience, I find that in most workflows, the committer date is the one that I find relevant.

Within our teams, we usually end up creating aliases/updating configuration to make the Git log show the committer date by default, and find that it makes the log/commit viewing easier to understand for non-super-users.

I understand the distinction between the 2 formats, and I can see the utility of both. I'm curious about the decision to show the author date and not the committer date as default one in Git commands. Are there some workflows where the author date is more relevant, or is that mostly a legacy decision?

I'd be interested in hearing about workflows where the author date is the more useful one, as I use the committer date almost always.

I've tried to look for information regarding this decision (both in the documentation and through the mailing list), but couldn't find any discussion.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts, / Omri Sarig

Jeff KingJul 11, 2026, 08:03 UTC in reply to Omri Sarig on lore

Re: Understanding why Git defaults to show author date and not committer date

On Fri, Jul 10, 2026 at 05:08:11PM +0200, Omri Sarig wrote:

Show 8 quoted lines

> I understand the distinction between the 2 formats, and I can see the utility of
> both. I'm curious about the decision to show the author date and not the
> committer date as default one in Git commands.
> Are there some workflows where the author date is more relevant, or is that
> mostly a legacy decision?
> 
> I'd be interested in hearing about workflows where the author date is the more
> useful one, as I use the committer date almost always.

In a workflow based on mailing patches, the committer date is usually much less interesting. It is "when the maintainer happened to pick up your patch", as opposed to when you wrote it. Likewise, we show the author's name by default, not the committer's.

-Peff

Junio C HamanoJul 11, 2026, 20:54 UTC in reply to Jeff King on lore

Re: Understanding why Git defaults to show author date and not committer date

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

Show 15 quoted lines

> On Fri, Jul 10, 2026 at 05:08:11PM +0200, Omri Sarig wrote:
>
>> I understand the distinction between the 2 formats, and I can see the utility of
>> both. I'm curious about the decision to show the author date and not the
>> committer date as default one in Git commands.
>> Are there some workflows where the author date is more relevant, or is that
>> mostly a legacy decision?
>> 
>> I'd be interested in hearing about workflows where the author date is the more
>> useful one, as I use the committer date almost always.
>
> In a workflow based on mailing patches, the committer date is usually
> much less interesting. It is "when the maintainer happened to pick up
> your patch", as opposed to when you wrote it. Likewise, we show the
> author's name by default, not the committer's.

True. In mailing list workflow, the author date recorded is usually the date that the patch was sent to the mailing list, which may be later than when you wrote it, but is much more relevant as that is closer to the time when anybody other than the author have seen the patch for the first time.

Oswald BuddenhagenJul 12, 2026, 08:45 UTC in reply to Junio C Hamano on lore

Re: Understanding why Git defaults to show author date and not committer date

On Sat, Jul 11, 2026 at 01:54:02PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 11 quoted lines

>Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:
>> In a workflow based on mailing patches, the committer date is usually
>> much less interesting. It is "when the maintainer happened to pick up
>> your patch", as opposed to when you wrote it.
>
>True.  In mailing list workflow, the author date recorded is usually
>the date that the patch was sent to the mailing list, which may be
>later than when you wrote it, but is much more relevant as that is
>closer to the time when anybody other than the author have seen the
>patch for the first time.
>

but why do you consider this more interesting than when the commit actually hit the target branch? why would most people exploring branch histories care more for the "meta" surrounding submissions rather than when they actually started to matter to users?

>> Likewise, we show the author's name by default, not the committer's.
>

which should be kept, because the committer identity is much less interesting in most workflows.

showing author name + committer date by default may seem unclean, but it's what is most *useful*.

if the change was to be made, it would have to be visualized to avoid confusion. i kinda like s/Date:/Stamp:/ because it's short and the metaphor kinda makes sense. "Committed:" seems worse. format=fuller's "CommitDate" seems even worse in this context.

the new default should get a new somewhat arbitrary name like "compact". note that i'm not worried about backwards compatibility, as somebody parsing the porcelain output without even specifying a format doesn't deserve differently.