Commit ID '{commit_id_str}' is ambiguous. Please provide mor

Error message

Commit ID '{commit_id_str}' is ambiguous. Please provide more characters to uniquely identify the commit.

What it means

The commit ID prefix matched more than one entity in the IdMap, so `but resolve` refuses to guess and asks for more characters (resolve.rs:169-173). This mirrors the ambiguity handling of the other ID-based commands (land, absorb).

Source

Thrown at crates/but/src/command/legacy/resolve.rs:170

}

/// Resolve a user-provided commit identifier (CLI ID or partial SHA) to an
/// object id, along with its display ref rendered from the same map.
fn parse_commit_id(ctx: &mut Context, commit_id_str: &str) -> Result<(gix::ObjectId, String)> {
    // Create an IdMap to resolve commit IDs (supports both CLI IDs and partial SHAs)
    let id_map = IdMap::legacy_new_from_context(ctx)?;

    // Resolve the commit ID using the IdMap
    let matches = id_map.parse_using_context(commit_id_str, ctx)?;

    if matches.is_empty() {
        bail!(
            "Commit '{commit_id_str}' not found. Try running 'but status' to see available commits."
        );
    }

    if matches.len() > 1 {
        bail!(
            "Commit ID '{commit_id_str}' is ambiguous. Please provide more characters to uniquely identify the commit."
        );
    }

    // Extract the commit OID from the matched CliId
    match &matches[0] {
        CliId::Commit {
            commit: CommitId { commit_id, .. },
            id: _,
        } => {
            let commit_ref = theme::Commit(CommitIdRef {
                commit_id: *commit_id,
                change_id: id_map
                    .change_id_ref(*commit_id)
                    .map(|change_id| &change_id.change_id),
            })
            .to_string();
            Ok((*commit_id, commit_ref))

View on GitHub (pinned to caf1f223d3)

Solutions

Add characters until the ID is unique (verify in `but status`).
Use the full SHA for absolute precision in scripts.
For repeated automation, resolve the full ID once and pass that.

Example fix

# before
but resolve 4     # matches several commits -> ambiguous

# after
but resolve 4a2   # unique prefix (or the full SHA)

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

# Ensure the prefix resolves to exactly one entity before resolving
but status | grep -cF '<id>'   # a count above 1 means: lengthen the prefix

Prevention

Lengthen prefixes until unique; use full SHAs in scripts.
Re-resolve IDs once and store the full form instead of reusing brittle prefixes.

When it happens

Trigger: `but resolve <prefix>` where the prefix is a prefix of two or more IDs — short prefixes in workspaces with many commits, branches, and uncommitted files.

Common situations: Growing stacks making previously-unique prefixes collide; scripts reusing hardcoded short prefixes across sessions.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of gitbutlerapp/gitbutler@caf1f223d3 (2026-08-20). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e2e05bfff2c8b4d4. Report an issue: GitHub.