How do you annotate a branch?

Question

Is there any way to annotate a branch? It would be nice to be able to do something like:

$ git notes add branch-name -m \'This branch is for whatever\'

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Answer 1

Using git tag --annotate tags with descriptions may be created.

The tag is technically attributed to a commit instead of a branch. If all collaborators agree on using the branch name (as part of) the tag name, the corresponding tag(s) to a branch can be listed using the branch name as part of a filter pattern. The -n option allows to show the actual annotation. Aliases may come handy in order to automatically use the current branch name for creating and listing special branch description tags.

Note 1: git describe may be used to find the most recent tag in a branch. Unfortunately this may list tags of other branches if they are merged into the branch of interest.

Note 2: It is not recommended to update a tag to HEAD manually using --force.

An advantage of using tags is that the description is available to all collaborators.