Finding the right version string in a CI/CD pipeline can be surprisingly tricky. If you’ve been searching for a way to grab the “latest” tag in your GitLab runner, you’ve likely stumbled across this specific combination of Git commands. At least I did… Here is a breakdown of what that command does, why it works, and the “gotchas” you need to look out for. The Command Breakdown The command is actually two Git commands nested together: 1. The Inner Command: git rev-list The part inside the parenthesis, git rev-list --tags --max-count=1, acts as a locator. 2. The Outer Command: git describe Once the inner command finds the “hash” (the unique…