Checking Out Branches From Tig


I use tig for my git tree browser. My normal usage is to look at the the commit tree (normally viewing all branches with tig --all) but it’s a powerful tool with a lot of features, some of which I’m starting to integrate into my daily work.

Today I learned how check out a branch directly from tig.

The first step is to switch into ‘refs’ mode with r - this shows a view of all the local branches, remote branches and tags:

"The tig refs view" tig’s ‘refs’ view

From any of these you can check out that branch or tag by putting the cursor on that line and pressing C.

On my team we use long branch names which reference a story ID, so checking out with tig is much quicker than typing out eg:

git checkout -b branchname origin/branchname

It’s also possible to check out individual commits (without creating a branch) from the normal tig view by putting the cursor over that commit and pressing O.