git whatchanged: Usage, Options & Common CI Errors

By Daniel Zoghalchali·Latchkey

git whatchanged lists each commit together with the files it changed.

whatchanged is an older, log-like command showing per-commit file changes. It still works, but git log --raw / --name-only is the documented, preferred way today.

What it does

git whatchanged walks history like git log but defaults to showing, for each commit, the list of files it modified (in raw diff format), making per-commit file churn easy to scan.

Common usage

git whatchanged --oneline
git whatchanged -p -- path/to/file
git whatchanged --since="1 week ago"
# modern equivalent:
git log --raw --oneline

Options

Common errors in CI

whatchanged is deprecated in favor of git log, so prefer git log --name-only / --raw for new scripts to avoid relying on legacy defaults. On a shallow clone it shows only the fetched commits, which can make file-history reports look truncated.

Using this in CI

CI checkouts are shallow and detached by default, which changes the answer this command gives you. Commands that read history, branch names, or tags need the checkout configured for it.

- uses: actions/checkout@v4
  with:
    fetch-depth: 0   # history, tags, and git describe all need this

- run: |
    git rev-parse --is-shallow-repository   # expect false
    git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD          # prints HEAD when detached

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

References

• GitHub Actions documentation