I use git describe as a means to obtain a sensible version number for software I build & install from a non-release checkout of a git repository.

Is there a way to get the output of that command directly (for the given/current commit) via the github or gitlab web interfaces, rather than having to clone the repository locally, checkout the desired commit and then running the command?

Example: I’ve identified the last WebKit commit that supports using GLX with the GTk port (#ec3dd91419a8c035ddb2c79bbd85a93619bab1e9). I plan to fetch the tarball to build from that but this won’t give me the proper version number. I don’t know of a way to clone and check out a repo at a specific commit so I’m now waiting for a clone starting (tentatively!) at jan 1st 2022 until today which is an almost complete waste of my time and bandwidth …