A Curated List Of Git Commands Enough To Keep Your Git History Flat

Jul 5, 2018・3 min read

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A curated list of git commands enough to keep your git history flat I’ve been working on projects where we keep the git history flat (no merge-commits) for quite a bit of time now, and I’ve decided to make a list of git commands I often use during every-day development. Some of them I use rarely, but just want to keep the list sort of complete. Maybe some of you will find it useful as well.

CHECKOUT

git checkout master — switch branch to master
git checkout bk-add-users — switch branch to bk-add-users
git checkout -b bk-add-projects — create new branch from current branch and switch to it
git checkout — — switch branch to previous branch
git checkout master -- db/structure.sql— get file from different branch

PULL

git pull --rebase origin master — rebase onto specific branch (add your commits to end of history)
git pull --rebase --autostash origin master — same as above, but works on dirty repository

ADD

git add . — add all changes
git add README.md — add specific file or directory
git add -p — add changes progressively
git add -N . — make not staged files subject for adding

COMMIT

git commit -m “Add projects management” — commit with message
git commit --amend — merge with last commit with possibility to change message
git commit --amend -CHEAD — merge with last commit without changing message

BRANCHES

git log — see commits history
git rebase -i HEAD~5 — rebase interactively (squash/reorder/remove/rename) last 5 commits on current branch
git fetch — update branches from remote repository
git fetch --all --prune — remove outdated remote-tracking references
git branch add-users origin/add-users — checkout and track remote branch
git branch -m bk-add-ussers bk-add-users — rename branch
git branch -d bk-add-users — remove local branch
git push origin :bk-add-users — remove remote branch
git merge bk-add-users --ff-only — merge branch into current branch keeping flat history (I am usually just clicking a “Rebase and merge” button on Github instead)

PUSH

git push — push to remote / tracked branch
git push origin bk-add-users — push to specific branch on remote
git push origin HEAD — push to current branch on remote
git push origin HEAD --force — enforce history overwriting
git push origin HEAD --force-with-lease — safer, overwrites history if no new changes were introduced

OTHER

git status — no comment needed here
git diff — show current changes
git show c04c07e — show changes from specific commit
git stash — store current changes in stash
git stash pop — restore recently stashed changes
git cherry-pick c04c07e — get specific commit to your current branch
git checkout . — get rid of current modifications, unstaged files will be kept
git reset --hard origin/master — reset to remote HEAD
git reset HEAD~2 — “uncommit” last two commits, keep changes in unstaged state
git reset HEAD~2 --hard — get rid of last two commits, changes will be lost
git reset HEAD --hard — get rid of all current changes and new files
git clean -fd — get rid of all unstaged files and directories

git commands

Błażej Kosmowski

I help our CTOs, Development Leads, Product Owners and business executives to design and build scalable and maintainable systems. With over 13 years of experience gained on software development projects delivered to international clients, I am able to enhance the productivity of software development teams while creating data collection, processing and analysis tools.

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