---
topic: commits
source_keys:
  - gitea-mcp-repo
  - gitea-mcp-slim-go
---

# Commit operations

Read-only commit history, scoped to a repo (optionally to one branch or one path). Call signatures
below were verified live against the deployed `gitea-mcp` server via `ToolSearch` at authoring time,
not copied from research docs, for the same drift-avoidance reason noted in `references/branches.md`.

This domain has no prior skill precedent — it's new coverage added alongside branches because commit
history is naturally scoped to a branch (a "what happened on this branch" question), not because it
shares any tool family with branch create/delete.

## `list_commits`

**Parameters:**
- `owner` (string, required)
- `repo` (string, required)
- `sha` (string, optional) — starting SHA or branch name; if omitted, gitea-mcp uses the repo's
  default branch
- `path` (string, optional) — restrict results to commits that touched this file/path
- `page` (number, optional, default: `1`, minimum: `1`)
- `per_page` (number, optional, default: `30`, minimum: `1`)

**Call:**
```
list_commits owner: <owner> repo: <repo> sha: <branch-or-sha> path: <optional-path>
```

Dispatch defaults:
- "commits on `<branch>`" → pass `<branch>` as `sha`.
- "commits touching `<path>`" (no branch mentioned) → pass `path` alone, `sha` omitted (defaults to
  the repo's default branch).
- Both given → pass both; the result is history for that path, walked from that branch/SHA.
- Neither given → omit both; this returns default-branch history, which is a reasonable default for
  an open-ended "what's the recent history here" question.

**Response:** one object per commit: `sha`, `html_url`, `created`, `message` (when available),
`author` (`{name, email, date}`, when available).

Paginate per the manual-pagination Gotcha in SKILL.md if you need more than one page of history.

## `get_commit`

**Parameters:**
- `owner` (string, required)
- `repo` (string, required)
- `sha` (string, required)

**Call:**
```
get_commit owner: <owner> repo: <repo> sha: <commit-sha>
```

**Response:** same shape as a `list_commits` entry, but always fully populated (`message` and
`author` are guaranteed present, not conditional). Use this when the user asks about one specific
commit by SHA rather than browsing history — `list_commits` entries may omit `message`/`author` in
edge cases, `get_commit` will not.

## Token scope

Both tools are believed to require `write:repository`, even though they're read-only — inferred by
analogy with the scope-gating principle in `overview.md` (Gitea gates reads behind write scope for
repo-scoped operations), not a claim `overview.md` makes for commits by name: its explicit
`write:repository` enumeration lists PR, branch, file, release, and tag operations, but doesn't
mention commits. An earlier version of this doc claimed `write:issue` alone worked, based on
empirical testing under a token that held both `write:issue` and `write:repository`
simultaneously — that test didn't isolate the variable either. Treat this as unverified until
tested under a token scoped to `write:issue` only (no `write:repository`).