Git Version Required for OCR

[wu21-web]

shell@Alicloud:~/open-code-review$ uname -a && go version && git --version
Linux 8a3bd9015b90 5.10.134-19.7.1.al8.x86_64 #1 SMP Fri Jul 17 17:44:41 CST 2026 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
go version go1.13.4 linux/amd64
git version 2.17.1
shell@Alicloud:~/open-code-review$ ocr review
[ocr] 2 file(s) changed, reviewing 1 in /home/shell/open-code-review
[ocr] Skipping CONTRIBUTING.md — filtered by path/extension rules
[ocr] Filtered 1 file(s) by include/exclude rules
[ocr] Skipping plan phase for .github/workflows/ci.yml (3 lines < threshold 50)
[ocr]   ▶ file_read file_path=.github/workflows/ci.yml
[ocr]   ✔ file_read (0s)
[ocr]   ▶ code_comment ".github/workflows/ci.yml"
[ocr]   ✔ code_comment (4.578s)
[ocr] Summary: 1 file(s) reviewed, 2 comment(s), ~23217 token(s) used (input: ~18679, output: ~4538), cache(read: ~12288, write: ~0), 36s elapsed
Review complete: 2 finding(s) across 1 selected item(s).
shell@Alicloud:~/open-code-review$ git status
On branch main
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/main'.

Changes to be committed:
  (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)

        modified:   .github/workflows/ci.yml

shell@Alicloud:~/open-code-review$ 

The README said the minimal git version is 2.41. Does this mean there is a issue in the README or some features are specific to git >= 2.41 and cannot function on older git versions?

[wu21-web]

Note

Changes in pull requests 865 does not have any relationship with this discussion. This discussion is only related since the both the topics are about git.

[CasperKristiansson]

The README is not wrong: Git 2.41 is OCR's supported minimum. OCR does not currently enforce that version at startup, so Git 2.17 can appear to work on this particular staged-workspace path.

In v1.9.2, workspace review first runs git diff ... --end-of-options HEAD --. Git 2.17 rejects that command; OCR then falls back to git diff --staged -- whenever the first command errors or returns no output. Because your workflow file is staged, that fallback still produces a diff and the review completes. I reproduced this behavior with Git 2.17.0.

That success does not establish full compatibility. On 2.17, the fallback can omit unstaged tracked changes. Range review has no staged fallback, and commit review uses --diff-merges=first-parent, which Git 2.17 also rejects. The newer options were added deliberately in PR #376 and PR #450.

So I would treat the README as the source of truth and upgrade Git to at least 2.41 before relying on OCR's results:

git --version
ocr review

[wu21-web]

Thank you!