Common Git Commands

Why?

Command-line git continuously proves to be needed just infrequently enough to elude memory. Every time I go to create a new local/remote branch, merge a specific way, or rollback a commit, I end up Googling, “git …” I decided to create this page so I could consolidate all of those common commands to a single bookmark. Eventually, I’ll remember more than git reset --hard.

Warning

Hard resetting is not a good practice unless you know what you’re doing 🙃

Git Summary

If you are unfamiliar with a git workflow, the commands below will make more sense in this context:

Workflow

Furthermore, terminology matters! Let’s define some terms for the common commands below.

Workspace	The folder on your computer. Where you open files, make changes, and save changes.
Index	The staging area between your Workspace and Local repo.
Local (Repository)	Record of commits, specific to you, on your computer.
Remote (Repository)	Record of commits, for every member of the project, usually stored on a server. Accessible by all members in some way. On-premise server or cloud-based. Can even be a shared network folder.

The following commands cover a lot of the steps above.

local branches

# list branches
git branch -a

# create a new local branch and switch to new branch
# (with "develop" as new branch name")
git checkout -b develop

# delete local branch
# (with "develop" as branch to delete)
git branch -d develop

# rename a branch
# (from master to main)
git branch -m master main

# delete local branches that are not on the remote anymore
git remote prune origin

# rebase feature branch with changes made to develop branch
# (with "feature_branch" as name of feature and "develop" as name of develop)
git checkout feature_branch
git rebase develop

remote branches

# show origin
git remote -v

# show details about branch status
git remote -vv

# create new remote branch from local
# (with "develop" as local branch name)
git push -u origin develop

# the -u above is important; it means "upstream"
# it ensures the local branch is set up to track the remote branch from "origin"
# if you forget the -u, you will need to set it up manually
# like this (with "develop" as the branch name)
git branch -u origin/develop

# delete remote branch
# (with "develop" as branch to delete)
git push origin --delete develop

# if you get an error failing to push some refs, that's because the local branch
#   you deleted was not pushed to the remote
# the following line will delete that branch from your refs folder
# (refs are located at "~/.git/refs/...")
git update-ref -d refs/remotes/origin/dev
# THEN, you must delete the branch on the remote with the same push as above
git push origin --delete dev
# otherwise, the next time you pull, the ref will be added again from the remote

# set the HEAD
git remote set-head origin -a

merging

# stash Workspace changes, pull remote changes, merge Workspace changes
git stash
git pull
git stash pop

# prioritize the feature branch during a merge to develop
git checkout develop
git merge -s ort -Xtheirs feature-module-rewrite2

reverting

Danger Zone

Proceed with caution. Work may be lost if executed incorrectly.

# reset Workspace changes (e.g., before commits)
# this reverts all unpushed changes to the last commit from the remote branch
git reset --hard

# reset Workspace changes back a number of commits
# (here, just 1, and before any commits to Local)
git reset --hard HEAD~1

Resources

Merge Strategies