Git - How to fix a bad commit

Oh no, this commit is a mess! 🤦‍♂️

We all have a bad day sometimes. We can forget to include a file, leave some comments, or a merge didn't go as expected. Fortunately, Git has some commands to deal with these common situations and I want to show you some of them.

Modify commit message

Oops... You found a spelling mistake in the commit message. No worries, you can modify it:

git commit --amend -m "new message"

Add files to last commit

You already have committed the changes but forgot to add some files. No problem, you can still add them to the commit:

git add <file_name>
git commit --amend HEAD~1

Undo commits

If you want to undo the last commit but keep the changes:

git reset --soft HEAD~1

If you want to undo both commit and changes: ⚠️ Be sure that you want to lose the changes:

git reset --hard HEAD~1

Alternatively, if you want to undo all your local changes, you can reset to the origin version of the branch:

git reset --hard origin/<branch_name>

If you want to undo the commit without altering the existing history. You can use git revert, this command undoes a commit by creating a new commit:

git revert HEAD

If you have just resolved some conflicts, finished the merge, and push to origin. But wait, something went wrong...

The safe way to undo a merge commit that has already pushed to the remote branch is using the git revert command:

git revert -m 1 <commit_id>

commit_id is the merge commit id that you want to revert.

Notes:

• You can also undo any number of commits. E.g:

  • git reset HEAD~3 (going back three commits before HEAD).
  • git reset --hard <commit_id> (going back to a specific commit).

• Use git reset if the commit is not pushed yet and you don't want to introduce a bad commit to the remote branch.

• Use git revert to revert a merge commit that has already pushed to the remote branch.

• Use git log to review the commit history.

• If you prefer, you can also create a new commit with the fix.

I hope you find these commands as useful as I do and can use them. If you already knew these or think one is missing, please let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading!

Comments

[Dominik Halfkann]

Those are some great tips! I always loved this site called „Oh Sh*t, git“ because it has a pretty elaborative list of what can go wrong and how to fix it: ohshitgit.com/

[Guillermo Verón]

What a great resource! Thanks a lot for sharing it. 🚀

[Marko Shiva]

just learn it like any other language or a tool in toolchain.
Like cmake or makefile syntax... :)
Its not hard especially if you do not mind studying how it is implemented there are nice courses on the topic.

[Paweł Ciosek]

thanks, really useful. It's funny that most dev use git, but not many know stuff you mentioned here.

[Guillermo Verón]

Thanks to you, @pavelee ! 🙏🏻️

[Pich Chaya]

Thank you for useful tips

[Guillermo Verón]

Thank you 🙌

[Kayode Adechinan]

great tips, thanks

[Guillermo Verón]

Thank you! 🙌

[kHRISl33t]

Using reflog can also be helpful to see what you did on your local. :)

[Guillermo Verón]

Thanks for mentioning it! It's very useful in figuring out what happened

[Aleksei Berezkin]

Thanks for not mentioning force push 😉 Worked at project where lead used it routinely, and that was very frustrating

[Guillermo Verón]

Thanks, @alekseiberezkin ! I can't imagine how frustrating it was. 🤦🏻‍♂️️

[Jace Chou]

Useful tips

[Guillermo Verón]

Thank you, @mrzhouzh ! 🙏🏻️

[Bhupesh Varshney 👾]

Wrote this script to undo your last git f**k up (still in WIP for a stable release)
Might help someone :)

Bhupesh-V / ugit

🚨️ ugit helps you undo your last git command with grace. Your damage control git buddy

ugit

Undo your last oopsie 🙈️ in git without much effort

Why ugit

• You did an accidental git command you didn't want to.
• You don't want to waste your time searching on how to undo ...

What's in the box

ugit supports undoing following operations, some are a WIP. If you know of any operation that can be undone and is not in the list, make sure to send a quick PR 💛️

• Undo git commit
• Undo git add
• Undo git push
• Undo git branch -D (branch delete)
• Undo git pull
• Undo git reset
• Undo git tag -d (tag delete)
• Undo git stash apply
• Undo git stash pop/drop/clear
• Undo accidental file delete (Restore a deleted file after a commit)
• Undo (Restore) a file to a previous version
• Undo git merge
• Undo git tag (rename a tag)
• Undo git rebase
• Undo git cherry-pick
• Undo git worktree remove (recover deleted work-tree)

Installation

…

View on GitHub

[Guillermo Verón]

Wow! Great job! 🤯️

[Letícia Pegoraro Garcez]

Wow, that's super useful. I have to say I LOVE git, but I don't know as much as I'd like on how to use it properly haha

[Guillermo Verón]

Thanks a lot @lelepg , Git is hugeee!

[ramu]

This is very useful

[Guillermo Verón]

Thank you 🙌

[Soham Patil]

git rebase -i Head~x

This works to delete the commit history and rebase your branch on any commit