title: Is there a simple way to "git describe" a remote repository?
body: <p>I want to execute the following command on a remote server:</p>
  
  <pre><code>git archive --prefix="$tag/" --remote="ssh://$gitserver/var/git/$repo" "$tag" | tar -xvf-
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The problem is I don't know what <code>$tag</code> is. It should be the output of <code>git describe --abbrev=0</code> on an up-to-date clone, but I don't know how to get that information without making a local clone of the repository. Is it possible to do this without making a local clone?</p>