According to the man of git-describe, http://git-scm.com/docs/git-describe git-describe - Show the most recent tag that is reachable from a commit It means that this command shows the name of the most recent tag. However, actually, it construct a new tag name if the current commit is not tagged. I think, "git-describe - Describe a commit using the most recent tag reachable from it" is a better summary. -- Best Regards Yours faithfully Albert Netymk -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html