Git Commands Cheat Sheet - Essential Version Control Commands - version_control Cheatsheets

This cheat sheet provides essential Git commands for efficient version control. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced developer, these commands will help you manage your codebase effectively.

Git Configuration

Set up your Git environment with your identity and preferred editor.

# Set your identity.
git config --global user.name "John Doe"
git config --global user.email johndoe@example.com

# Set your editor.
git config --global core.editor emacs

# Enable color support for commands like `git diff`. Disable with `never` or
# partially disable -- unless otherwise applied -- with `false`.
git config --global color.ui true

Git Staging and Committing

Learn how to stage changes, commit them with messages, and amend previous commits.

# Stage all changes for commit.
git add [--all|-A]

# Stash changes locally. This will keep the changes in a separate changelist, -
# called 'stash', and the working directory is cleaned. You can apply changes
# from the stash at any time.
git stash

# Stash changes with a message.
git stash save "message"

# List all the stashed changes.
git stash list

# Apply the most recent change and remove the stash from the stash list.
git stash pop

# Apply stash from the stash list, but does not remove the stash from the list.
git stash apply stash@{6}

# Commit staged changes.
git commit -m "Your commit message"

# Edit previous commit message.
git commit --amend

# Commit in the past. Newer versions of Git allow `--date="2 days ago"` usage.
git commit --date="`date --date='2 day ago'`"
git commit --date="Jun 13 18:30:25 IST 2015"

# Change the date of an existing commit.
git filter-branch --env-filter \
    'if [ $GIT_COMMIT = 119f9ecf58069b265ab22f1f97d2b648faf932e0 ]
     then
         export GIT_AUTHOR_DATE="Fri Jan 2 21:38:53 2009 -0800"
         export GIT_COMMITTER_DATE="Sat May 19 01:01:01 2007 -0700"
     fi'

Git Reset and Clean

Understand how to reset your repository to a previous state and clean up untracked files.

# Remove staged and working directory changes.
git reset --hard

# Go 2 commits back.
git reset --hard HEAD~2

# Remove untracked files.
git clean -f -d

# Remove untracked and ignored files.
git clean -f -d -x

Git Branching and Merging

Manage your branches effectively, including pushing, deleting, and tracking remote branches.

# Push to the tracked master branch.
git push origin master

# Push to a specified repository.
git push git@github.com:[USER_NAME]/[REPO_NAME].git

# Delete the branch "branch_name".
git branch -D [BRANCH]

# Make an existing branch track a remote branch.
git branch -u upstream/foo

# List all local and remote branches.
git branch -a

# Sync a fork with the master repo.
git remote add upstream git@github.com:name/repo.git # <-- Set a new repo.
git remote -v # <-- Confirm new remote repo.
git fetch upstream # <-- Get branches.
git branch -va # <-- List local - remote branches.
git checkout master # <-- Checkout local master branch.
git checkout -b new_branch # <-- Create and checkout a new branch.
git merge upstream/master # <-- Merge remote into local repo.

# Checkout a new branch from a different starting point.
git checkout -b master upstream/master

# Reset local branch to upstream branch, then checkout it.
git checkout -B master upstream/master

# Remove all stale branches; ones that have been deleted on remote. So if you
# have a lot of useless branches, delete them on GitHub and then run this.
git remote prune origin

# Prune all remotes at once.
git remote prune $(git remote | tr '\n' ' ')

Git History and Inspection

Explore your commit history, see who changed what, and view differences between commits and branches.

# See who committed which line in a file.
git blame [FILE]

# Show what a commit did.
git show 83fb499 # <-- Show what a commit did.
git show 83fb499:path/to/file.ext # <-- Show the file as it was in 83fb499.
git diff branch_1 branch_2 # <-- Check difference between branches.
git log # <-- Show all of the commits.
git status # <-- Show the changes from the last commit.

# Display the commit history of a set of files.
git log --pretty=email --patch-with-stat --reverse --full-index -- Admin\*.py > Sripts.patch

# View commits which would be pushed.
git log @{u}..

# View changes which are new on a feature branch.
git log -p feature --not master
git diff master...feature

# Show changes to files WITHOUT considering them a part of git. This can be
# used to diff files which are not part of a git repo!
git diff --no-index path/to/file/A path/to/file/B

# Revisions can also be identified with `:/text`. So, this will show the first
# commit that has the string "cool" in its message body.
git show :/cool

# List files changed in a given commit.
git diff-tree --no-commit-id --name-only -r [HASH]

# Porcelain-ly List files changed in a given commit; user-facing approach.
git show --pretty="" --name-only bd61ad98

# See everything you have done, across branches, in a glance, then go to the
# place right before you broke everything.
git reflog
git reset HEAD@{hash}

Git Advanced Operations

Discover advanced techniques like interactive rebasing, cherry-picking, and shallow cloning.

# Interactive rebase for the last 7 commits.
git rebase -i @~7

# Pull changes, while overwriting any local commits.
git fetch --all
git reset --hard origin/master

# Update all submodules.
git submodule update --init --recursive

# Perform a shallow clone, to only get the latest commits, which helps to save
# data (good for limited data connections) when cloning large repos.
git clone --depth 1 <remote-url>

# Unshallow a clone.
git pull --unshallow

# Create a bare branch; without any commits.
git checkout --orphan branch_name

# Undo parts of the last commit in a specific file.
git checkout -p HEAD^ -- /path/to/file

# Revert a commit, but keep the history of the event as a separate commit.
git revert <commit SHA>

# Apply only the changes made within a given commit. This is different to the
# `merge` command, as it would otherwise apply all commits from a branch.
git cherry-pick [HASH]

# Undo last commit. If you want to nuke commit C to never see it again:
#    (F)
# A-B-C
#     ↑
#   master
git reset --hard HEAD~1

# Undo last commit. If you want to undo the commit, but keep your changes:
#    (F)
# A-B-C
#   ↑
# master
git reset HEAD~1

# Import commits from another repo.
git --git-dir=../some_other_repo/.git format-patch -k -1 --stdout <commit SHA> | git am -3 -k

# Move your most recent commit from one branch, to stage it on [BRANCH].
git reset HEAD~ --soft
git stash
git checkout [BRANCH]
git stash pop
git add .

External Resources

For more in-depth information and advanced usage, refer to the official Git documentation and other valuable resources.