Git Cheatsheet - handy commands for every situation

Gourav Goyal

Gourav Goyal

Twitter · LinkedIn

Oct 28, 2021

When I collaborate with others using Git, I often have to google to find the right git commands for various situations. Situations like how to pull changes without committing local files, save uncommitted changes in the current branch and switch, add new changes to the last commit, reset my local branch to main, revert the latest commit from local and remote, etc. So, I decided to write these down in one place as a handy cheatsheet so that it's easier for me (and hopefully others) to recall and use.

Jargon

  • remote - remote means server like github, bitbucket, etc.

  • local - your git repo stored in PC

  • remote repository - your git repo stored on github, bitbucket, etc.

  • origin - origin is your remote repo (from where you did git clone)

  • upstream - upstream is their main repo (from which you have forked, useful to get latest changes from their repo releases)

  • tag - you can create a tag when doing software releases

  • main - it's the head branch named main (default created branch for any new repo, earlier it was used to be master)

  • HEAD - head always refers to the latest commit on your current branch.

  • fetch - just download latest changes from a remote branch in separate path and do not integrate with your repo. git merge is required to integrate these changes

  • pull - means getting latest changes from a remote branch into your branch (git pull = git fetch + git merge) To pull from your remote branch: git pull

    To pull from remote main branch: git pull origin main

  • commit - means adding a record entry of your changes e.g. git commit -m "added feature X"

  • push - means uploading your local commits to a remote server. To push commits to your remote branch: git push To push commits to remote main branch: git push origin main

  • merge conflict - when you make changes to a file and someone else make some other changes to the same file and along the same line numbers you get merge conflict. Happens often during pull/push or merging a PR.

Git workflows

  • Option A: Clone main repo -> create a new branch -> do your thing -> send PR to main branch
  • Option B: Fork from the main repo -> do your thing -> send PR

Commit specification

Use Conventional Commits specification for adding human and machine readable meaning to commit messages.

Lint commit messages using commitlint.

Benefits:

  • Automatically generating CHANGELOGs.
  • Automatically determining a semantic version bump (based on the types of commits landed).
  • Communicating the nature of changes to teammates, the public, and other stakeholders.
  • Triggering build and publish processes.

Syntax (v1.0.0):

  • fix: a commit of the type fix patches a bug in your codebase (this correlates with PATCH in Semantic Versioning). ex: fix: prevent racing of requests
  • feat: a commit of the type feat introduces a new feature to the codebase (this correlates with MINOR in Semantic Versioning). ex: feat: allow provided config object to extend other configs
  • !: appends a ! after the type/scope, introduces a breaking API change (correlating with MAJOR in Semantic Versioning). ex: feat!: send an email to the customer when a product is shipped , chore!: drop support for Node 6
  • types other than fix: and feat: are allowed, for example @commitlint/config-conventional recommends build:, chore:, ci:, docs:, style:, refactor:, perf:, test:, and others.

Advanced Tips

Exclude file(s) from git revision without adding it to .gitignore

Have you ever wanted to create some file(s) in your repo but do not want it to commit or show in the git changes?

Your first thought would be to mention that file in .gitignore and commit it, but what if I told you there's a way without even adding it to your repo's .gitignore:

per repository basis

Let's suppose you want to have a folder drafts and ignore it and everything in it from git:

  • create a folder drafts in your repo

  • add some files to it

  • those files will currently show as untracked files when running git status

  • Now, create a .gitignore file inside drafts and write * in it. That's it! Run git status and you wouldn't see any changes!

    • you can create as many files or folders inside drafts and it wouldn't show up in git changes.
    • next time, you can use this one-liner command to create a drafts folder and put a .gitignore file:
    mkdir drafts && echo '*' > ./drafts/.gitignore

for all repositories

  • We'll be using a global .gitignore for it that takes higher precedence over a repo's .gitignore file.
  • let's suppose you want to hide .DS_Store, .env.production files from all current and future repo's:
    1. changes directory to /Users/{User}
      • cd ~
    2. create an empty file with .gitignore
      • Mac: touch .gitignore
      • Windows: type nul > .gitignore or echo.> .gitignore
    3. Tell git to use that file as global ignore
      • git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore
    4. open this .gitignore file:
      • Mac: open -a TextEdit ~/.gitignore
      • Windows: notepad ~/.gitignore
    5. and mention files (or patterns) to ignore:
    .DS_Store
.env.production

Add local git repo to Github

Create new repo on Github and push local git repo code to it.

(requires Github CLI)

Run inside root of local git repo:

gh repo create ( -> Push an existing local repository to GitHub)
git branch -M main
git push -u origin main

Stage & Commit

git add . (stage ALL new,modified files)

git add -A (stage ALL new,modified,deleted files)

git add file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt

git add -i (interactive add/revert)

git commit -m 'fixed this and that'

Git append (commit using last commit msg)

git commit --reuse-message=HEAD

Git add+commit

  • It also adds newly created files
git add -A ; git commit -m "Your Message" (powershell)
git add -A && git commit -m "Your Message" (bash)

Push/Pull

git push origin

git push upstream

git push upstream/some_branch

git push origin HEAD (push local changes to remote branch with same name)

Pull from main to dev branch

git pull origin main (pull latest changes from remote main branch into local dev branch)

Download big repository on poor bandwidth

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/34389446/how-do-i-download-a-large-git-repository/52090961#52090961

Remove untracked files from local and remote

  1. add those files to .gitignore
  2. git rm -r --cached .
  3. git add .
  4. git commit -am "Remove ignored files"
  5. git push

compare file/line revision | see line/file history

  • to see who and when made a change to a specific line in a file:

using VSCode extension

  1. install GitLens VSCode extension
  2. go to line, and hover over gitlens gray text
  3. click on icon that says: "open blame prior to this change"
  4. you can keep repeating it to see throughout the history of line/file.

Tip: If you don't always want to see blame info at cursor location, you can switch it off via VSCode command pallete: "Gitlens: Toggle Line Blame"

using git blame command

using git bisect command

PR / Review

create PR inside VSCode

  • CLI: gh pr create --fill (need to install Github CLI)

  • GUI: use VSCode extension: GitHub Pull Requests and Issues

  • Github:

    1Visit repo on github.com and switch to your branch.

    1. Go to Pull requests section -> New pull request

List PRs

  • gh pr list

See all changes from a PR as uncommitted changes

Option A:

  1. checkout PR (100) in 'detached HEAD' state git fetch origin pull/100/head && git checkout FETCH_HEAD
  2. show as uncommitted changes git reset main
  3. switch back to main branch and carry these changes git switch -

Option B:

Branch

checkout remote branch

(you can also enable autofetch in VSCode settings to avoid doing git fetch every time)

git fetch && git checkout branch_name

Create local branch

code will be copied from current branch

  git checkout -b feature_x

create local branch from some other branch

git checkout -b feature_x main

push newly created branch to remote

branch is not available to github.com unless you push it separately

  git push --set-upstream origin feature_x

Add Remote branch

origin is your repo on github.com

  git remote add origin https://github.com/user/repo.git

Add upstream

upstream is their main repo from which you have forked

  git remote add upstream https://github.com/their_user/repo.git

Create new local version branch of an upstream branch

  git checkout -b feature_x upstream/main (main is the branch name)

switch branch

  git checkout feature_x

delete the branch

git branch -d feature_x

Get URL of Github repo

git remote show origin

git remote set-url origin new.git.url

Work between branches

get latest from master branch

Tip: merge is easier than rebase if there are multiple commits and conflicts. stackoverflow explanation

merge

  1. make local main branch upto date with origin/upstream
git checkout main
git pull
git checkout feature
  1. merge
git merge main
git commit -m 'merge'
  1. resolve conflicts if any. accept incoming changes instead of current changes.
  2. Push changes
git push

To abort merge midway git merge --abort

rebase

  • Get all commits from main branch into feature branch i.e. sync feature with main
  1. Start rebase
git checkout feature
git rebase origin/main

  1. Resolve merge conflicts if any

    1. accept current changes instead of incoming changes.
    2. once resolved, run git add .
    3. continue after resolving merge conflicts git rebase --continue
    4. Repeat same steps untill no more merge conflicts

  2. Force push and done

git push -f

To abort rebase midway (like during conflicts): git rebase --abort

pull

git pull is the combination of git fetch + git merge

Open file from another branch w/o switching

It'll create a new file in your repo.

git show branch:path/to/file > file

Push from one branch to another

git push origin from_branch:to_branch

Git stash - locally store changes without commit

  • it locally stores changes and resets any modified files
git stash -u (-u means --include-untracked)

tip: Give stash a name so that it's easier to recall later in case of multiple stashes:

git stash push -m "my_stash"
  • see list of all stashes
git stash list

  • retrieve locally stored changes from stash

    • retrieve last stash and remove it from stash list. You won't be able to retrieve it again. git stash pop
    • retrieve last stash but keep it in the stash list. You can retrieve it again later. git stash apply

  • retrieve a particular stash but also keep it in the stash list:

    1. find stash index name from git stash list
    2. use that index name: git stash apply stash@{n}

Git pull without committing local changes

  • hide your local uncommitted changes temporarily
git stash -u (-u means --include-untracked)
  • get latest changes
git pull
  • now unhide your local uncommitted changes
git stash pop

move uncommitted changes to another branch

uncommitted changes do not belong to any branch so just create/switch branch:

git checkout -b <new-branch>

Save uncommitted changes and switch branch

  1. save uncommitted changes to stack for current branch stack
git stash -u (-u means --include-untracked)
  1. checkout different branch
git checkout B
  1. Recover stash To pop stashed changes from previous A branch
git checkout A
git stash apply (will recover changes from last stack)

clone uncommitted changes to new branch

  1. save uncommitted changes to stack for current branch stack
git stash -u (-u means --include-untracked)
  1. restore these changes back (a copy of these changes is still stored in stash list)
git stash apply
  1. create/switch to different branch and these uncommitted changes will be carried:
git checkout -b new_branch
  1. To recover stashed changes from previous A branch
git checkout A
git stash apply

checkout a specific commit

get commit_sha1 from git log

git checkout <commit_sha1>

Copy specific commit from one branch to another

Ex: copy one commit from dev to main

using gui:

  • switch to main: git checkout main
  • run gitk --all
  • right-click on desired commit and select Cherry-pick this commit

using cli:

  • get commit sha1-id you want to copy
git checkout dev
git log (copy desired commit_id)
(to exit type q)
  • copy commit:
git checkout main
git cherry-pick <commit_id>

Repo Status

git status

Show latest commits

using cli:

 git log
(to exit type q)

using gui:

gitk

Display current branch name

  git branch

Git GUI (free)

Windows

Mac

Git interactive commands

git add -i

use colorful git output

git config color.ui true

I f*cked up

Switch to an old commit

  • Temporarily switch by creating new branch

    git checkout 0d1d7fc32  (commit id)

  • Revert current branch to an older commit

    git reset --hard <commidId> && git clean -f

Add new changes to last commit

  • If you pushed last commit to remote
git add .
git commit --amend --no-edit (`--no-edit` to keep last commit msg)
git push --force
  • If you didn't push the commit to remote
git reset HEAD^

Then add all files and commit again

Resolve Merge Conflicts

  • revert current merge conflicts
git reset --hard HEAD
  • revert all my changes and pull latest from main
git reset --hard HEAD
git pull -s recursive -X theirs upstream branch_remote

Discard all uncommitted changes (local)

git checkout .

Revert last local commit but keep the changes in my pc

git reset HEAD^

Revert last remote commit (remote, untraceable)

  1. Get that commit to local git pull

  2. Remove commit locally git reset HEAD^

  3. Force-push the last HEAD commit to remote git push origin +HEAD

Revert all local changes and local commits (local)

fetch the latest history from the remote and point your local master branch at it

git fetch origin git reset --hard origin/main (main is the branch name)

Reset local branch to it's remote

  • sync local branch main with remote branch main
git checkout main
git reset --hard origin/main
git pull origin main

Reset dev branch to main

git checkout dev
git reset --hard origin/main
git pull origin main
git push -f

Clean up a fork and restart it from the upstream

git reset --hard upstream/main (main is the branch name of original repo)
git push origin my_branch --force (or git push origin HEAD --force)

git Users

Set

git config --local user.name "localuser"
git config --local user.email "localuser@example.com"
git config --global user.name "globaluser"
git config --global user.email "globaluser@example.com"

Get

git config --local user.name
git config --local user.email
git config --global user.name
git config --global user.email

git config --list

Remember Me

Remember username & password

  1. Secured Way (Store globally)
    git config --global credential.helper manager //secured way for Windows

    git push http://example.com/repo.git
    Username: <type your username once>
    Password: <type your password once>
  1. Unsecured way (Store globally)
    git config credential.helper store //username & password stored in plain-text in "%UserProfile%\.git-credentials"
    git push http://example.com/repo.git
    Username: <type your username once>
    Password: <type your password once>
  1. Unsecured way (Store locally per repo)
    //saved in file 'cred' inside repo .git folder. Need to manually delete this file.
    git config credential.helper 'store --file=.git/cred'
  1. Secured Way (Store in Cache)
    git config credential.helper 'cache --timeout=864000' // 10 days expiry
    git credential-cache exit // remove it from cache before timeout

Remove credentials

git config --unset credential.helper
git config --local --unset credential.helper
git config --global --unset credential.helper
git config --system --unset credential.helper
//Windows: delete from Control Panel\User Accounts\Credential Manager

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Gourav Goyal

Gourav Goyal

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