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As long as the branch hasn't been deleted, it's possible to figure out based on the commits, correct? (Not exactly easy, but possible.)

And if the branch has been deleted, which typically happens after merging, then there's not much reason to know the branch name.

Is there something I'm missing here?

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> then there's not much reason to know the branch name

Most likely the branch names give you a good deal of information in working out why things have happened.

This

That information should be in the merge commit message. If you merge something git will offer you a default commit message like "Merge branch 'foo'".

(assuming a non-fast-forward commit, where the branch is not really a branch because nothing happens in parallel)

So can I ask git to show me the merge commit that relates to the commit I'm looking at?

We use Jira and bitbucket - most if not all branch names contain an issue number and the name of the issue, while commit messages can be more cryptic. This is often helpful when the branch has been deleted, as it usually is.

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