Useful Git Commands

This page provides a reference guide for commonly used Git commands that will help you manage your repositories effectively.

Command	Explanation
git status	Shows the status of the current working directory. It shows what tracked/untracked changes you have made and whether your current local branch is up to date with the remote branch
git checkout <branch name>	Checkout an already created branch so you can make any changes
git checkout -b <branch name>	Create a new branch based on the branch you’re already on
git add .	Adds everything in the current directory to the staging area
git commit -m "description of changes"	Commits files that have been staged (i.e. added using git add). It basically takes a snapshot of the currently staged changes. If you don’t use the -m option, git will open your default text editor for you to write a commit message.
git push -u origin <branch name>	Pushes the specified local branch up to the remote repository. Once pushed, the branch can be accessed by anyone who has access to that repository
git merge <branch name> -m "description of changes"	Merges the specified branch name into the branch you’ve currently got checked out
git branch -d <branch name>	Deletes the specified branch. You can’t delete the branch you’ve currently got checked out so you’ll have to switch to another branch first before deleting. -d will only work if the branch has already been pushed and merged with the remote branch. Otherwise you’ll have to use -D to forcefully delete.
git branch \| grep "<criteria>" \| xargs git branch -d	Deletes any branch that meets the specified criteria. For example git branch \| grep "defect*" \| xargs git branch -d would delete any branch that contains “defect” followed by any numbers of characters. This is useful for deleting multiple branches in one go.
git branch \| grep -v "main" \| xargs git branch -d	Deletes ALL local branches apart from the main branch. Useful if you’ve not been doing your housekeeping and deleting each branch after pushing to the remote repo.
git clean -f -n	Removes any untracked files from the current directory. -n performs a dry run so you can view the files which would be removed should you perform the command. -f forcefully deletes the files. You can also use -d to remove untracked directories.
git reset	Unstage everything but retain any changes made to the files. This is useful if you want to undo a git add.
git reset --soft HEAD~1	Undo the last commit whilst keeping the changes you made to the files. –soft ensures any changes you have made are preserved. HEAD~1 will undo the last commit, HEAD~2 will undo the last 2 commits and so on.
git checkout -- .	Undo changes to all untracked files in the current working directory. To undo changes to a specific file you can use <filename> instead of “.”
git log	View the commit history. You can use -n1 at the end to show the last commit or -n5 to show the last 5 commits etc.
git ls-files -z -d \| xargs -0 git checkout --	Recover all unstaged deletions at once without having to specific individual paths
git status \| grep 'deleted:' \| awk '{print $2}' \| xargs git checkout --	Recover all staged deletions at once without having to specific individual paths
git diff <file one> <file two>	Compare <file one> to <file two>. Additions will be shown in green with a “+” and deletions will be shown in red with a “-“. Can use the –color-words option to show difference between just single lines.
git commit --amend -m "description of changes"	Amends the most recent commit.
git revert <commit SHA value>	Reverts the specified commit and removes those changes from the current working directory. e.g. “git revert 6794c13e5203” would revert any changes made in that commit.
git switch <name-of-remote-branch>	Switches to a remote branch. There’s no need to add “remote” or “origin” before the branch name.