Git Commands

Here's a list of basic Git commands that I use daily for dev.

Clone

Starting with the basics, this command makes a copy of the remote to the local machine.

git clone <repo:url>

(The repo looks like: https://github.com/ajayns/github-cmds)

Commit and Push

This set of commands is used to make changes, save them and push them to the remote, better explained step by step:

First, add the files to git

git add -A

(. will add all files and folders, so file names in its place can be used to add files specifically)

Commit the changes

git commit -m 'Add commit message here'

(A commit message is a brief account of changes made, like 'Minor fixes', 'Added login component')

Add the remote to the Git repo

git remote add origin <repo:url>

Push the changes to the remote

git push -u origin master

(origin can be replaced with other remotes depending where you want to push to. master refers the main branch, it can be changed to whichever branch you'd like to push)

Pushing commits needn't be done everytime you make a commit, instead, multiple commits can be push together from local to remote.

Branch

Create a new branch from current one

git branch <branch-name>

Switch to a branch

git checkout <branch-name>

Create new branch and switch to it

git checkout -b <branch-name>

Delete a branch

git branch -d <branch-name>

Merge a branch to master,

git checkout master

(making sure you are in the master branch)

git merge <branch-name>

Fetching a branch from remote and track it locally by adding new branch to the local repo

git fetch <remote> <branch-name>:<local-branch-name>

Syncing a forked repo

Clone the remote repo to local system and the following setups will bring the local and remote repos up to date with the source repo.

Add the source remote (where you cloned from) to git, calling it upstream

git remote add upstream <repo:url>

Fetch all branches from upstream

git fetch upstream

Switch to master branch

git checkout master

Rewrite your master branch so that any commits of yours that aren't already in upstream/master are replayed on top of that other branch:

git rebase upstream/master

(These same steps can be done for branches other than master also)

Finally, push the repo to your forked remote to make it up to date

git push -f origin master

(Use the -f only when first rebase)

ALT:

Add the source remote (where you cloned from) to git, calling it upstream

git remote add upstream <repo:url>

Fetch all branches from upstream

git fetch upstream

Merge by pull

git pull upstream master

Squashing commits

Squashing previous 'n'commits into one new commit

// Assuming you want to squash previous 2 commits
// HEAD~n specifies number of commits to squash
git reset --soft HEAD~2 && git commit -m 'New commit message here'

To squash in interactive rebase mode

git rebase -i HEAD~2

Follow the steps after this screen, to select and merge from terminal itself.

Delete Changes

Discards all changes made in working directory

git clean -df
git checkout .

(clean is used to clear all changes made to tracked files while checkout . deletes all untracked files)

Alternatively, to save all changes made to working directory away and revert it to match the HEAD (last) commit

git stash -u

Delete Branch

Locally delete branch:

git branch -D <branch-name>

Delete remote branch:

git push <remote_name> --delete <branch_name>

Remotes

View all of the remotes

git remote -v

Add a new remote

git remote add <remote-name> <remote-url>

Changing an exising remote's URL

git remote set-url <remote-name> <new-remote-url>

Undo Commit

To undo 1 commit

git reset HEAD~1

Amend Commit Message

To change the commit message of last commit, which is not pushed

git commit --amend