Quick reference

Other cheatsheets

working directory/ workspace: the actual files you see and edit
staging area: Place files go after git add and before git commit
hash: unique reference of any commit or state
branch: One line of work. Different branches can exist at the same time and split/merge.
HEAD: Pointer to the most recent commit on the current branch.
remote: Roughly, another server that holds .git.
origin: Default name for a remote repository.
master: Default name for main branch on Git. Depending on the configuration and service, the default branch is sometimes main. In this lesson we configure Git so that the default branch is called main to be more consistent with GitHub and GitLab.
main: Default name for main branch on GitLab and GitHub. In this lesson we configure Git so that the default branch is called main to be more consistent with GitHub and GitLab.

Setup:

See our status:

git status: see status of files - use often!
git log: see history of commits and their messages, newest first
git graph: see a detailed graph of commits. Create this command with git config --global alias.graph "log --all --graph --decorate --oneline"
git diff: show difference between working directory and last commit
git diff --staged: show difference between staging area and last commit
git show <commit>: inspect individual commits

General work:

git add:
- Add a new file
- Add a file to staging
git commit: record a version, add it to current branch
git commit --amend: amend our last commit
git branch: show which branch we’re on
git branch <name>: create a new branch called “name”
git restore <file>: restore last committed/staged version of <file>, losing unstaged changes
git switch --create <branch-name>: create a new branch and switch to it
git revert abc123: create a new commit which reverts commit abc123
git reset --soft abc123: remove all commits after abc123, but keep their modifications as staged changes
git reset --hard abc123: remove all commits after abc123, permanently throwing away their changes
git merge <branch-name>: merge branch <branch-name> into current branch
git grep: search for patterns in tracked files
git annotate: find out when a specific line got introduced and by whom
git bisect: find a commit which broke some functionality