How To Use Git: A Reference Guide

Introduction

Teams of developers and open-source software maintainers typically manage their projects through Git, a distributed version control system that supports collaboration.

This cheat sheet-style guide provides a quick reference to commands that are useful for working and collaborating in a Git repository. To install and configure Git, be sure to read “How To Contribute to Open Source: Getting Started with Git.”

How to Use This Guide:

This guide is in cheat sheet format with self-contained command-line snippets.
Jump to any section that is relevant to the task you are trying to complete.
When you see highlighted text in this guide’s commands, keep in mind that this text should refer to the commits and files in your own repository.

Set Up and Initialization

Check your Git version with the following command, which will also confirm that Git is installed.

git --version

You can initialize your current working directory as a Git repository with highlighted text.

git --version

To copy an existing Git repository hosted remotely, you’ll use highlighted text with the repo’s URL or server location (in the latter case you will use highlighted text).

git --version

Show your current Git directory’s remote repository.

git --version

For a more verbose output, use the highlighted text flag.

git --version

Add the Git upstream, which can be a URL or can be hosted on a server (in the latter case, connect with highlighted text).

git --version

Staging

When you’ve modified a file and have marked it to go in your next commit, it is considered to be a staged file.

Check the status of your Git repository, including files added that are not staged, and files that are staged.

git --version

To stage modified files, use the highlighted text command, which you can run multiple times before a commit. If you make subsequent changes that you want included in the next commit, you must run highlighted text again.

You can specify the specific file with highlighted text.

git --version

With highlighted text you can add all files in the current directory including files that begin with a highlighted text.

git --version

You can remove a file from staging while retaining changes within your working directory with highlighted text.

git --version

Committing

Once you have staged your updates, you are ready to commit them, which will record changes you have made to the repository.

To commit staged files, you’ll run the highlighted text command with your meaningful commit message so that you can track commits.

git --version

You can condense staging all tracked files with committing them in one step.

git --version

If you need to modify your commit message, you can do so with the highlighted text flag.

git --version

Branches

A branch in Git is a movable pointer to one of the commits in the repository, it allows you to isolate work and manage feature development and integrations. You can learn more about branches by reading the Git documentation.

List all current branches with the highlighted text command. An asterisk (highlighted text) will appear next to your currently active branch.

git --version

Create a new branch. You will remain on your currently active branch until you switch to the new one.

git --version

Switch to any existing branch and check it out into your current working directory.

git --version

You can consolidate the creation and checkout of a new branch by using the highlighted text flag.

git --version

Rename your branch name.

git --version

Merge the specified branch’s history into the one you’re currently working in.

git --version

Abort the merge, in case there are conflicts.

git --version

You can also select a particular commit to merge with highlighted text with the string that references the specific commit.

git --version

When you have merged a branch and no longer need the branch, you can delete it.

git --version

If you have not merged a branch to master, but are sure you want to delete it, you can force delete a branch.

git --version

Collaborate and Update

To download changes from another repository, such as the remote upstream, you’ll use highlighted text.

git --version

Merge the fetched commits.

git --version

Push or transmit your local branch commits to the remote repository branch.

git --version

Fetch and merge any commits from the tracking remote branch.

git --version

Inspecting

Display the commit history for the currently active branch.

git --version

Show the commits that changed a particular file. This follows the file regardless of file renaming.

git --version

Show the commits that are on one branch and not on the other. This will show commits on highlighted text that are not on highlighted text.

git --version

Look at reference logs (highlighted text) to see when the tips of branches and other references were last updated within the repository.

git --version

Show any object in Git via its commit string or hash in a more human-readable format.

git --version

Show Changes

The highlighted text command shows changes between commits, branches, and more. You can read more fully about it through the Git documentation.

Compare modified files that are on the staging area.

git --version

Display the diff of what is in highlighted text but is not in highlighted text.

git --version

Show the diff between two specific commits.

git --version

Stashing

Sometimes you’ll find that you made changes to some code, but before you finish you have to begin working on something else. You’re not quite ready to commit the changes you have made so far, but you don’t want to lose your work. The highlighted text command will allow you to save your local modifications and revert back to the working directory that is in line with the most recent highlighted text commit.

Stash your current work.

git --version

See what you currently have stashed.

git --version

Your stashes will be named highlighted text, highlighted text, and so on.

Show information about a particular stash.

git --version

To bring the files in a current stash out of the stash while still retaining the stash, use highlighted text.

git --version

If you want to bring files out of a stash, and no longer need the stash, use highlighted text.

git --version

If you no longer need the files saved in a particular stash, you can highlighted text the stash.

git --version

If you have multiple stashes saved and no longer need to use any of them, you can use highlighted text to remove them.

git --version

Ignoring Files

If you want to keep files in your local Git directory, but do not want to commit them to the project, you can add these files to your highlighted text file so that they do not cause conflicts.

Use a text editor such as nano to add files to the highlighted text file.

git --version

To see examples of highlighted text files, you can look at GitHub’s highlighted text template repo.

Rebasing

A rebase allows us to move branches around by changing the commit that they are based on. With rebasing, you can squash or reword commits.

You can start a rebase by either calling the number of commits you have made that you want to rebase (highlighted text in the case below).

git --version

Alternatively, you can rebase based on a particular commit string or hash.

git --version

Once you have squashed or reworded commits, you can complete the rebase of your branch on top of the latest version of the project’s upstream code.

git --version

To learn more about rebasing and updating, you can read How To Rebase and Update a Pull Request, which is also applicable to any type of commit.

Resetting

Sometimes, including after a rebase, you need to reset your working tree. You can reset to a particular commit, and delete all changes, with the following command.

git --version

To force push your last known non-conflicting commit to the origin repository, you’ll need to use highlighted text.

Warning: Force pushing to master is often frowned upon unless there is a really important reason for doing it. Use sparingly when working on your own repositories, and work to avoid this when you’re collaborating.

git --version

To remove local untracked files and subdirectories from the Git directory for a clean working branch, you can use highlighted text.

git --version

If you need to modify your local repository so that it looks like the current upstream master (that is, there are too many conflicts), you can perform a hard reset.

Note: Performing this command will make your local repository look exactly like the upstream. Any commits you have made but that were not pulled into the upstream will be destroyed.

git --version

Conclusion

This guide covers some of the more common Git commands you may use when managing repositories and collaborating on software.

#git