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Ravi Mengar
Ravi Mengar

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A Git Cheatsheet Of Commands Every Developer Should Use

#git #github #codenewbie #beginners

GIT is the most widely used distributed open-source Version Control System that allows you to track and manage changes made to the files locally on your computer.

However, the tool is so powerful and extensive enough to get lost in all the possible commands it has.

Hence, based on my own experience, here’s a compilation of GIT cheat sheet
which is the most important and commonly used GIT commands for easy reference.

Here, you can download GIT for all platforms.

GIT CHEAT SHEET 📋

CREATE

From existing data,

  • git init creates new repository in current directory
  • git add . add all latest changes to the next commit 
cd ~/projects/myproject
git init
git add .
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From existing repo

  • git clone is used to clone a repositroy from a remote server 
git clone ~/existing/repo ~new/repo
git clone you@host:dir/project.git (default protocol is ssh)
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Remote repository for existing local data

mkdir repo.git && cd repo.git
git init --bare[--shared=group]
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UPDATE

Fetch latest changes from origin

git fetch (this does not merge them)
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Pull latest changes from origin

git pull (does a fetch followed by a merge)
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Apply a patch that someone sent you

git am -3 patch.mbox (In case of conflict, resolve the conflict and)
git am --resolve
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PUBLISH

Commit all local changes

git commit -a
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Commit previously staged changes

git commit -m "descriptive message"
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Prepare a patch for other developers

git format-patch origin
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Push changes to origin

git push [origin][branch]
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Make a version or a milestone

git tag <version_name>
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BRANCH

Switch to the BRANCH branch

git checkout <BRANCH>
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Merge branch B1 into branch B2

git checkout <B2>
git merge <B1>
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Create branch based on HEAD

git branch <BRANCH>
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Create branch based on another

git checkout <new><base>
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Delete a branch

git branch -d <branch>
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REVERT

Return to the last committed state

git checkout -f | git reset --hard (you cannot undo a hard reset)
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Revert the last commit

git revert HEAD (Creates a new commit)
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Revert specific commit

git revert $id (Creates a new commit)
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Fix the last commit

git commit -a --amend (after editing the broken files)
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Checkout the ID version of a file

git checkout <ID><file>
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SHOW

Files changed in working directory

git status
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Changes to tracked files

git diff
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Changes between ID1 and ID2

git diff <ID1><ID2>
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History of changes

git log
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History of changes with files changed

git whatchanged
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Who changed what and when in a file

git blame <file>
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A commit identifies by ID

git show <ID>
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A specific file from a specific ID

git diff <ID>:<file>
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All local branches

git branch (star "*" marks the current branch)
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Search for patterns

git grep<pattern>[path]
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Here,

  • master is the default development branch
  • origin is the default upstream repository
  • HEAD is the current branch

That's it from me today. I hope this cheat sheet helps you with some of the problems you may encounter along the way.

Certainly, it does not cover all the things, but it’s a good article to begin with.

Thanks for reading and let me know about your favorite Git commands in response to this article and share it with your friends and colleagues.

Top comments (16)

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myrtletree33 profile image
jhtong •

Another command I would add is Git Rebase:

git rebase origin/master
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Which would apply all the changes in master, below your branch, to make your commits grouped together and more organized.

Also, I use this quite a lot:

git rebase -i HEAD~2
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Which runs your rebase in interactive mode for the most recent 2 commits (which is really helpful for squashing and renaming your commits), making it more readable.

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eecolor profile image
EECOLOR •

In practice I have noticed more problems arise when using rebase. These problems come up when you work as a team in a branch or have merged other branches (and solved conflicts).

We now have the policy that you are only allowed to rebase if the code has not been pushed to the remote. We also prevent push --force which is required for most rebases.

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ravimengar profile image
Ravi Mengar • • Edited

Hey, jhtong

Thanks for letting me know about these commands. Will surely make use of it. Appreciate your help man👍

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liliang8858 profile image
edwin_ew •

nice

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_arisharyanto profile image
Aris Haryanto • • Edited

also you need to add

git stash
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when you want to keep your working progress without commit then you need to switch to other branch

and

git stash pop
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to put their back to your file

i think this is important if you work with some branch

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loebkes profile image
Lui •

I often use git stash save -m "name" instead as I can give the stash a name for easier identification later on

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i386net profile image
i386net •

It's deprecated and it's recommended to use git stash push -m instead

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ravimengar profile image
Ravi Mengar •

Hey, Aris

Thanks for highlighting the above helpful commands. Will surely make use of it 👍

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bew profile image
Benoit de Chezelles •

Nice cheatsheet!

For git status you say Files changed in working directory, I think it's wrong, git status gives you the status of the current branch and the files of the whole repo, not just the working directory! For working directory status, you'd do git status .

Also checkout the subcommand git worktree (and its various options), I use it a lot to check something in another branch, review whole branches for a pr of someone else, or other cases. It allows me to have 2+ branches checked out at the same time, sharing the history graph!

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picwellwisher12pk profile image
Amir Hameed •

git am -3 patch.mbox (In case of conflict, resolve the conflict and)
git am --resolve

can you elaborate these?

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ravimengar profile image
Ravi Mengar • • Edited

Hey Amir,

Here, I've tried to elaborate your question,

  1. git am - Apply a series of patches from a mailbox.

  2. git am -3 patch : By default the command will try to detect the patch format automatically. This option allows the user to bypass the automatic detection and specify the patch format that the patch(es) should be interpreted as. Valid formats are mbox, mboxrd, stgit, stgit-series and hg.
    ( the -3 will do a three-way merge if there are conflicts )

  3. git am --resolve : When a patch failure occurs, will be printed to the screen before exiting. This overrides the standard message informing you to use --continue or --skip to handle the failure. This is solely for internal use between git rebase and git am.

I hope this will help you !!!

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loebkes profile image
Lui •

I often use git branch --merged to identify branches that I can delete as I have already merged them. Same goes for --no-merged to find out if I've forgotten to merge some features.

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harshilparmar profile image
Harshil Parmar •

Awesome !!! 👌🙌

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hasii2011 profile image
Humberto A Sanchez II •

This is very nice. I made a PDF out of this page

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ravimengar profile image
Ravi Mengar • • Edited

I'm glad that you found this helpful.😃

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jazzthedog profile image
Jazz •

I think 'git switch' is now more in favor than 'git checkout'? I use that to mainly switch between branches.

View full discussion (16 comments)

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