Daily workflow, branching, remotes, undo, stash, tags, advanced.

Initial setup

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "you@example.com"
git config --global init.defaultBranch main
git config --global core.editor vim
git config --global color.ui auto
git config --global pull.rebase true

• Useful aliases:

  git config --global alias.st status
  git config --global alias.co checkout
  git config --global alias.br branch
  git config --global alias.ci commit
  git config --global alias.lg "log --oneline --graph --decorate -20"
  

• Show config + origin: git config --list git config --list --show-origin

Daily workflow

• Status: git status / git status -s

• Stage file / dir: git add file.txt git add src/

• Interactive (per-hunk): git add -p

• Modified + deleted (not new untracked): git add -u

• Commit: git commit -m "message" git commit git commit -am "message"

Diff

• Unstaged: git diff

• Staged: git diff --staged

• Since last commit: git diff HEAD

• Branch vs branch: git diff main..feature

• Summary: git diff --stat

Log

• Full: git log

• Compact: git log --oneline

• Graph + all branches: git log --oneline --graph --all

• Last 20: git log --oneline -20

• By author / date / message: git log --author="jo" git log --since="2025-01-01" git log --grep="fix"

• File history with renames: git log -p --follow file.txt

Show / blame

• Show commit: git show abc1234 git show HEAD~3

• Blame: git blame file.txt git blame -L 10,20 file.txt

Branching

• List local / remote / all: git branch git branch -r git branch -a git branch -v

• Create: git branch feature-x

• Create + switch (modern): git switch -c feature-x

• Switch: git switch main

• Rename: git branch -m old new git branch -m new # current

• Delete (safe): git branch -d feature-x

• Force delete: git branch -D feature-x

Merge

• Merge: git checkout main && git merge feature-x

• Force merge commit (preserve branch history): git merge --no-ff feature-x

• Abort: git merge --abort

Rebase

• Onto main: git checkout feature-x && git rebase main

• Abort / continue: git rebase --abort / git rebase --continue

Remotes

• List: git remote -v

• Add: git remote add origin https://github.com/user/repo.git git remote add upstream https://github.com/original/repo.git

• Remove / rename: git remote remove origin git remote rename origin old-origin

Fetch / pull / push

• Fetch: git fetch origin git fetch --all

• Pull: git pull git pull --rebase

• Push: git push git push origin main

• Push + set upstream: git push -u origin feature-x

• Delete remote branch: git push origin --delete feature-x

• Push all branches / tags: git push --all origin git push --tags

Track / prune

• Track remote branch: git checkout --track origin/feature-x

• Set upstream: git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/main main

• Sync fork with upstream:

  git fetch upstream
  git checkout main
  git merge upstream/main
  git push origin main
  

• Prune stale refs: git fetch --prune git remote prune origin

Undo

Unstage / discard

• Unstage file: git restore --staged file.txt

• Discard local changes: git restore file.txt

• Discard all: git restore .

Amend

• Change message: git commit --amend -m "new message"

• Add forgotten file: git add forgotten.txt && git commit --amend --no-edit

Revert (safe on shared branches)

• New commit undoing old commit: git revert abc1234

Reset

• Soft (keep changes staged): git reset --soft HEAD~1

• Mixed (keep changes unstaged, default): git reset --mixed HEAD~1

• Hard (destructive!): git reset --hard HEAD~1

Recover lost commits

• Show reflog: git reflog

• Check out lost commit: git checkout abc1234

• Save it: git branch recovery abc1234

Remove files

• Untrack, keep on disk: git rm --cached file.txt

• Untrack + delete: git rm file.txt

Stash

• Save (staged + unstaged): git stash git stash push -m "description"

• Include untracked / ignored: git stash -u git stash -a

• Apply (keep in list): git stash apply

• Pop (apply + remove): git stash pop

• Specific stash: git stash apply stash@{2}

• List / show: git stash list git stash show -p stash@{0}

• Drop / clear: git stash drop stash@{1} git stash clear

• Branch from stash: git stash branch new-branch stash@{0}

Tags

• List: git tag git tag -l "v1.*"

• Annotated (recommended): git tag -a v1.0 -m "Release v1.0"

• Lightweight: git tag v1.0

• Tag specific commit: git tag -a v0.9 abc1234 -m "Retroactive"

• Show: git show v1.0

• Delete: git tag -d v1.0 git push origin --delete v1.0

• Push: git push origin v1.0 git push --tags

Cherry-pick

• Apply one commit: git cherry-pick abc1234

• Stage only (no commit): git cherry-pick --no-commit abc1234

• Range: git cherry-pick abc1234..def5678

• Abort: git cherry-pick --abort

Worktrees

• Add existing branch: git worktree add ../feature-x feature-x

• New branch + worktree: git worktree add -b hotfix ../hotfix main

• List: git worktree list

• Remove / prune: git worktree remove ../feature-x git worktree prune

Bisect

• Start + mark current bad + known good:

  git bisect start
  git bisect bad
  git bisect good v1.0
  

• Then iterate: git bisect good or git bisect bad

• Reset when done: git bisect reset

• Automated:

  git bisect start HEAD v1.0
  git bisect run ./test-script.sh
  

Interactive rebase

• Last 5 commits: git rebase -i HEAD~5

Commands in the editor:

• pick — keep
• reword — change message
• edit — stop to amend
• squash — merge into previous (keep both messages)
• fixup — merge into previous (discard message)
• drop — remove

Submodules

• Add: git submodule add https://github.com/user/repo.git path/to/sub

• Clone with submodules: git clone --recurse-submodules URL

• Initialize after clone: git submodule update --init --recursive

• Update to latest on tracked branch: git submodule update --remote

• Remove (3-step):

  git submodule deinit path/to/submodule
  git rm path/to/submodule
  rm -rf .git/modules/path/to/submodule
  

Useful patterns

• File history with diffs: git log -p --follow file.txt

• When was string added/removed: git log -S "searchString" --oneline

• When did regex appear: git log -G "regex" --oneline

• All tracked files: git ls-files

• File at specific revision: git show HEAD~3:path/to/file.txt

• Tar archive of HEAD: git archive --format=tar.gz --prefix=project/ HEAD > project.tar.gz

• Clean untracked: git clean -nd # dry run git clean -fd # for real

• Shallow clone: git clone --depth 1 URL

• Sparse checkout:

  git sparse-checkout init
  git sparse-checkout set src/ docs/
  

.gitignore

# Compiled
*.o
*.pyc
__pycache__/
build/
dist/

# Dependencies
node_modules/
vendor/

# Secrets
.env
.env.local
*.pem

# IDE
.vscode/
.idea/
*.swp

# OS
.DS_Store
Thumbs.db

# Logs
*.log

# Un-ignore
!important.log

• Check why a file is ignored: git check-ignore -v file.txt

• Global ignore: git config --global core.excludesFile ~/.config/git/ignore