I got playing with git log and ended up creating this alias:

[alias] lg = log --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr)%Creset' --abbrev-commit --date=relative

Which adds a git lg command that is a prettier version of git log --oneline .

The notable features are:

one commit per line

show graph of commits

abbreviated commit IDs

dates relative to now

show commit references (like git log --decorate )

) lots of colour

You can run the following to add it to your ~/.gitconfig :

git config --global alias.lg "log --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr)%Creset' --abbrev-commit --date=relative"

Here is what it looks like for me...

There might be other gems hiden in my .gitconfig, so have a look.

Update...

Since this article was written, I've pimped the git lg alias a bit more. This one also displays the author's name.

Here is the new config:

[alias] lg = log --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit --date=relative

... and here is how you can install it on your system: