Phases are a system for tracking which changesets have been or should be shared. This helps prevent common mistakes when modifying history (for instance, with the mq or rebase extensions).
Each changeset in a repository is in one of the following phases:
- public : changeset is visible on a public server
- draft : changeset is not yet published
- secret : changeset should not be pushed, pulled, or cloned
These phases are ordered (public < draft < secret) and no changeset can be in a lower phase than its ancestors. For instance, if a changeset is public, all its ancestors are also public. Lastly, changeset phases should only be changed towards the public phase.
For the most part, phases should work transparently. By default, a changeset is created in the draft phase and is moved into the public phase when it is pushed to another repository.
Once changesets become public, extensions like mq and rebase will refuse to operate on them to prevent creating duplicate changesets. Phases can also be manually manipulated with the hg phase command if needed. See hg help -v phase for examples.
To make your commits secret by default, put this in your configuration file:
[phases] new-commit = secret
Normally, all servers are publishing by default. This means:
- all draft changesets that are pulled or cloned appear in phase public on the client - all draft changesets that are pushed appear as public on both client and server - secret changesets are neither pushed, pulled, or cloned
Note
Pulling a draft changeset from a publishing server does not mark it as public on the server side due to the read-only nature of pull.
Sometimes it may be desirable to push and pull changesets in the draft phase to share unfinished work. This can be done by setting a repository to disable publishing in its configuration file:
[phases] publish = False
See hg help config for more information on configuration files.
Note
Servers running older versions of Mercurial are treated as publishing.
Note
Changesets in secret phase are not exchanged with the server. This applies to their content: file names, file contents, and changeset metadata. For technical reasons, the identifier (e.g. d825e4025e39) of the secret changeset may be communicated to the server.
list changesets in draft or secret phase:
hg log -r "not public()"change all secret changesets to draft:
hg phase --draft "secret()"forcibly move the current changeset and descendants from public to draft:
hg phase --force --draft .show a list of changeset revisions and each corresponding phase:
hg log --template "{rev} {phase}\n"resynchronize draft changesets relative to a remote repository:
hg phase -fd "outgoing(URL)"
See hg help phase for more information on manually manipulating phases.