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--commit
--no-commit

Perform the merge and commit the result. This option can be used to override --no-commit.

With --no-commit perform the merge and stop just before creating a merge commit, to give the user a chance to inspect and further tweak the merge result before committing.

Note that fast-forward updates do not create a merge commit and therefore there is no way to stop those merges with --no-commit. Thus, if you want to ensure your branch is not changed or updated by the merge command, use --no-ff with --no-commit.

--edit
-e
--no-edit

Invoke an editor before committing successful mechanical merge to further edit the auto-generated merge message, so that the user can explain and justify the merge. The --no-edit option can be used to accept the auto-generated message (this is generally discouraged). The --edit (or -e) option is still useful if you are giving a draft message with the -m option from the command line and want to edit it in the editor.

Older scripts may depend on the historical behaviour of not allowing the user to edit the merge log message. They will see an editor opened when they run git merge. To make it easier to adjust such scripts to the updated behaviour, the environment variable GIT_MERGE_AUTOEDIT can be set to no at the beginning of them.

--cleanup=<mode>

This option determines how the merge message will be cleaned up before committing. See git-commit[1] for more details. In addition, if the <mode> is given a value of scissors, scissors will be appended to MERGE_MSG before being passed on to the commit machinery in the case of a merge conflict.

With --ff, when possible resolve the merge as a fast-forward (only update the branch pointer to match the merged branch; do not create a merge commit). When not possible (when the merged-in history is not a descendant of the current history), create a merge commit.

With --no-ff, create a merge commit in all cases, even when the merge could instead be resolved as a fast-forward.

-S[<keyid>]
--gpg-sign[=<keyid>]
--no-gpg-sign

GPG-sign the resulting merge commit. The keyid argument is optional and defaults to the committer identity; if specified, it must be stuck to the option without a space. --no-gpg-sign is useful to countermand both commit.gpgSign configuration variable, and earlier --gpg-sign.

--log[=<n>]
--no-log

In addition to branch names, populate the log message with one-line descriptions from at most <n> actual commits that are being merged. See also git-fmt-merge-msg[1].

With --no-log do not list one-line descriptions from the actual commits being merged.

--signoff
--no-signoff

Add a Signed-off-by trailer by the committer at the end of the commit log message. The meaning of a signoff depends on the project to which you’re committing. For example, it may certify that the committer has the rights to submit the work under the project’s license or agrees to some contributor representation, such as a Developer Certificate of Origin. (See https://developercertificate.org for the one used by the Linux kernel and Git projects.) Consult the documentation or leadership of the project to which you’re contributing to understand how the signoffs are used in that project.

The --no-signoff option can be used to countermand an earlier --signoff option on the command line.

--stat
-n
--no-stat

Show a diffstat at the end of the merge. The diffstat is also controlled by the configuration option merge.stat.

With -n or --no-stat do not show a diffstat at the end of the merge.

--squash
--no-squash

Produce the working tree and index state as if a real merge happened (except for the merge information), but do not actually make a commit, move the HEAD, or record $GIT_DIR/MERGE_HEAD (to cause the next git commit command to create a merge commit). This allows you to create a single commit on top of the current branch whose effect is the same as merging another branch (or more in case of an octopus).

With --no-squash perform the merge and commit the result. This option can be used to override --squash.

With --squash, --commit is not allowed, and will fail.

--[no-]verify

By default, the pre-merge and commit-msg hooks are run. When --no-verify is given, these are bypassed. See also githooks[5].

-s <strategy>
--strategy=<strategy>

Use the given merge strategy; can be supplied more than once to specify them in the order they should be tried. If there is no -s option, a built-in list of strategies is used instead (ort when merging a single head, octopus otherwise).

-X <option>
--strategy-option=<option>

Pass merge strategy specific option through to the merge strategy.

--verify-signatures
--no-verify-signatures

Verify that the tip commit of the side branch being merged is signed with a valid key, i.e. a key that has a valid uid: in the default trust model, this means the signing key has been signed by a trusted key. If the tip commit of the side branch is not signed with a valid key, the merge is aborted.

--summary
--no-summary

Synonyms to --stat and --no-stat; these are deprecated and will be removed in the future.

-q
--quiet

Operate quietly. Implies --no-progress.

-v
--verbose

Be verbose.

--progress
--no-progress

Turn progress on/off explicitly. If neither is specified, progress is shown if standard error is connected to a terminal. Note that not all merge strategies may support progress reporting.

--autostash
--no-autostash

Automatically create a temporary stash entry before the operation begins, record it in the ref MERGE_AUTOSTASH and apply it after the operation ends. This means that you can run the operation on a dirty worktree. However, use with care: the final stash application after a successful merge might result in non-trivial conflicts.

--allow-unrelated-histories

By default, git merge command refuses to merge histories that do not share a common ancestor. This option can be used to override this safety when merging histories of two projects that started their lives independently. As that is a very rare occasion, no configuration variable to enable this by default exists and will not be added.

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