git blame
/ɡɪt bleɪm/
CommonLooking up who wrote a specific line of code, usually to figure out who is responsible for a bug.
The word 'blame' is in the command name, so it carries a mild accusatory tone even when not intended. Often used humorously when the guilty person turns out to be yourself.
Real-world examples4 examples
| # | Example | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | ran git blame on the broken code. it was me. from 2 years ago. i hate past me | The developer found they were the author of the code they were debugging. | x, 2024 |
| 02 | git blame shows it was the contractor who left 18 months ago. great | The person responsible cannot be reached or held accountable. | |
| 03 | before you git blame anyone check if the formatter rewrote the file. learned that the hard way | Automated code formatters often show up as the author in blame history, obscuring who actually wrote the logic. | reddit, 2023 |
| 04 | who thought this was a good idea? git blame: you, 3 years ago | The developer is confronting a past decision they no longer understand or agree with. | x, 2023 |
Use it when
- Looking up who wrote the code that caused a bug.
- Finding the origin of a questionable architectural decision in a codebase.
- Humorously pointing out that a past version of yourself wrote bad code.
Do not use it when
- You are assigning actual blame for a production incident without humor.
- You mean holding someone accountable in a general non-technical sense.Use “blame” instead.
Origin and context
A real Git subcommand (`git blame`) that annotates each line of a file with the last commit that touched it. Became slang when developers started using it as a cultural shorthand for tracing responsibility.
- First seen
- 2000s
- Confidence
- high
Cite this page
Use this stable URL to reference the entry.
https://slang.fyi/git-blameUpdated: 2026-08-28License: CC BY 4.0