title: Why doesn’t a git tag show up on any branch?
body: <p>I cloned the <a href="https://github.com/eclipse/mosquitto" rel="nofollow noreferrer">mosquitto repo</a> that has tag <a href="https://github.com/eclipse/mosquitto/releases/tag/v1.4.9" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><code>v1.4.9</code></a>. However the tagged commit does not appear to be on a branch. </p>
  
  <p>How could that happen? Does the author actually keep a branch on his own repo but only push tags from that branch to GitHub? Or does he just make a commit to a tag? </p>
  
  <p>I made the tag into a local branch</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ git checkout -b work149 v1.4.9
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and looked at the last commit on the branch: </p>
  
  <pre><code>$ git log -1
  commit 91bfd82491f90e24b6fe9c036f0b04a1f5c14a89
  Merge: bf959ef 2d0af73
  Author: Roger A. Light &lt;roger@atchoo.org&gt;
  Date:   Thu Jun 2 22:05:34 2016 +0100
  
      Merge branch 'fixes'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This commit is one ahead of the <code>fixes</code> branch. </p>
  
  <p>With <code>git log --graph</code> I can see an earlier commit on the same branch (not the <code>fixes</code> branch, but a branch I'm trying to understand): </p>
  
  <pre><code>* |   commit bf959ef9b0ae0e4d74bf80158ffb0b7c69da533d
  |\ \  Merge: 646e0a0 5cca6b4
  | |/  Author: Roger A. Light &lt;roger@atchoo.org&gt;
  | |   Date:   Sun Feb 14 14:38:42 2016 +0000
  | |
  | |       Merge branch 'fixes'
  | |
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>How do you find out whether a tag is on a branch and on which branch? Does the leftmost vertical bar indicate a branch and where is that branch on the remote? </p>
  
  <p>Is this a common practice? </p>
  
  <p>The <a href="http://git.661346.n2.nabble.com/Git-pull-doesn-t-get-the-tags-td5661212.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">discussion thread “Git pull doesn’t get the tags”</a> mentions “branch heads that are being tracked” and “non-commits.” I wonder whether the <code>git clone</code> command configures the clone not to track all the branches on the remote or the repo has somehow made the tags into non-commits? </p>