I've encountered a very misleading output from `git status`. Here's a sequence of events that demonstrates the issue: $ git --version git version 2.12.0 $ git checkout origin/master $ git status HEAD detached from origin/master nothing to commit, working directory clean $ git merge --ff f3515b749be861b57fc70c2341c1234eeb0d5b87 $ git status HEAD detached from origin/master nothing to commit, working directory clean $ git rev-parse origin/master e1dc1baaadee0f1aef2d5c45d068306025d11f67 $ git rev-parse HEAD 786cb6dd09897e0950a2bdc971f0665a059efd33 I think it's extremely misleading that `git status` simply reports "HEAD detached from origin/master" while this simply happens to be a mildly relevant fact about some past state. Thanks and regards