Git Solutions Collection

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Recipes for the Git situations that come up often enough to forget the exact incantation.

Amend the last commit

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git commit --amend                # also opens $EDITOR for the message
git commit --amend --no-edit      # keep the existing message

Don’t amend a commit that’s already been pushed to a shared branch; force-push rewrites others’ history.

Force-push safely

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git push --force-with-lease

Pushes only if the remote ref is still exactly what was last fetched locally. Catches the case where someone else pushed to the same branch in the meantime. Plain --force will obliterate that work.

Switch branches and discard changes (modern verbs)

switch and restore (Git 2.23+) replace the overloaded checkout:

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git switch other-branch                  # was: git checkout other-branch
git switch -c new-branch                 # create + switch
git restore .                            # discard all unstaged changes
git restore --staged .                   # unstage everything
git restore --source=HEAD~3 file.js      # pull a single file from 3 commits ago

Pull until a specific commit

Stack Overflow:

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git fetch origin <branch>
git merge <commit_hash>

“Your branch and ‘origin/main’ have diverged”

Stack Overflow. Discards local commits in favour of the remote:

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git fetch origin
git reset --hard origin/main             # or origin/master

Edit, squash, or reorder recent commits

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git rebase -i HEAD~5

In the rebase-todo editor: pick keeps the commit, reword opens the message, edit pauses for amends, squash/fixup fold the commit into the previous one, deleting a line drops the commit entirely.

Cherry-pick a single commit

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git cherry-pick <hash>
git cherry-pick <hash1>^..<hash2>        # range, inclusive of both ends

Find the commit that broke something

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git bisect start
git bisect bad                           # current revision is broken
git bisect good <known_good_hash>
# Then test each revision Git checks out and mark it:
git bisect good   # or
git bisect bad
# When it converges, exit:
git bisect reset

Work on multiple branches in parallel (worktrees)

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git worktree add ../proj-fix bugfix-branch
# Same .git, separate working tree. Edit both checkouts in parallel.
git worktree remove ../proj-fix

Recover a deleted branch

The reflog remembers commits even when no ref points to them:

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git reflog                                # locate the tip SHA
git switch -c recovered-branch <sha>

Recover a dropped stash entry

If you ran the following by mistake:

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git stash pop
git checkout -- .

Find the dangling commit and reapply it:

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gitk --all $( git fsck --no-reflog | awk '/dangling commit/ {print $3}' )
git stash apply <stash_hash>

Remove all unreachable objects

Warning: also removes any stashed entries that aren’t referenced by a branch.

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git reflog expire --expire-unreachable=now --all
git gc --prune=now

Commit case-sensitive-only filename changes

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git config --global core.ignorecase false
git mv filename.txt Filename.txt
git commit -m "Case sensitive file rename"

Untrack files newly added to .gitignore

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git rm --cached <file>
git rm -r --cached <folder>              # recursive, for directories