 Geodesic-vector criterion for a left-invariant metric

For a left-invariant metric on a Lie group, the one-parameter subgroup ${\gamma }_{\xi }(t)=\exp (t\xi )$ is a geodesic exactly whenfor every $\eta$ in the Lie algebra. The Koszul formula gives $⟨{\nabla }_{\xi }\xi ,\eta ⟩=-⟨\xi ,[\xi ,\eta ]⟩$.