The --abbrev-commit flag can be used in conjunction with git log and git rev-list in order to show partial prefixes instead of the full 40-character SHA-1 hashes of commit objects. According to the Pro Git book , it defaults to using seven characters but makes them longer if necessary to keep the SHA-1 unambiguous [...] Additionally, short SHAs are at least 4-character long. Still according to the Pro Git book, Generally, eight to ten characters are more than enough to be unique within a project. As an example, the Linux kernel, which is a pretty large project with over 450k commits and 3.6