Git Stash Without the Branch Name

I found a way to stash changes in git without including the branch name in the stash message. This might be a very niche use case but it’s been a minor annoyance for me for some time. If you just want the alias, then add the following to your .gitconfig:

[alias]
    sm = "!f() { git stash || exit 1; rev=$(git rev-parse stash@{0}) && git stash drop stash@{0} || exit 1; git stash store -m \"$1\" $rev; }; f"

You can also use this technique for renaming stashes.

Why?

When I stash changes in git, it’s usually work that is independent of the branch I’m working on. If I have work in progress that does belong on a particular branch, then I’ll create a WIP (“work in progress”) commit on that branch instead.

This means that git’s default behavior of including the branch name in the stash message just adds noise for me.

❯  git stash list
stash@{0}: On feature/get-user-groups: Potential refactor of auth flow
stash@{1}: On 123-fix-login-bug: disable-dupe-check

On top of that, most GUI clients show stashes in a sidebar so the important part of the message tends to be cut off.

Unfortunately there isn’t a built-in way to change this behavior but we can get around it with a git alias (formatted for clarity):

sm = "!f() {
    git stash || exit 1;
    rev=$(git rev-parse stash@{0}) && git stash drop stash@{0} || exit 1;
    git stash store -m \"$1\" $rev;
}; f"

This will stash the changes, drop the stash, and then use the stash store command to create a new stash from the commit of the dropped stash. The store command won’t include the branch name in the message, so running git sm "Potential refactor of auth flow" will give you:

❯  git stash list
stash@{0}: Potential refactor of auth flow

Why?#

Why?