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

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• git fetch --all --prune — remove outdated remote-tracking references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