@c6fcef92 Cool, here's a horrible hack of a "implement a database in a filesystem tree" that I use for the stable development work I do for this same problem (and others like it): https://git.sr.ht/~gregkh/linux-stable_commit_tree 

 @c6fcef92 Let's debug by this horrible interface!  

$ ./linuxscru history Makefile

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/mnt/fast_t2/linux/gregkh/./linuxscru", line 526, in <module>
    cmdargs.func(cmdargs)
  File "/mnt/fast_t2/linux/gregkh/./linuxscru", line 376, in cmd_history
    if not GITTREE.is_file(cmdargs.patterns):
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/mnt/fast_t2/linux/gregkh/./linuxscru", line 251, in is_file
    if GITTREE.gitpyrepo.git.rev_list('-1', GITTREE.remotes['mainline'][0], '--', pattern):
       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3.11/site-packages/git/cmd.py", line 739, in <lambda>
    return lambda *args, **kwargs: self._call_process(name, *args, **kwargs)
                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3.11/site-packages/git/cmd.py", line 1315, in _call_process
    return self.execute(call, **exec_kwargs)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3.11/site-packages/git/cmd.py", line 1110, in execute
    raise GitCommandError(redacted_command, status, stderr_value, stdout_value)
git.exc.GitCommandError: Cmd('git') failed due to: exit code(128)
  cmdline: git rev-list -1 mainline/master -- Makefile
  stderr: 'fatal: bad revision 'mainline/master''