Git Cheat Sheet

Create a new Git repository in the current folder, or start version control on an existing project.

From Latin initium (“beginning, entrance, fundamental principle”), inire (“to go into”).

The ritual invocation by which an ordinary filing system is endowed with a hidden sanctuary (.git), establishing the Object Database, the Reference Registry (refs/heads), and the architectural configuration parchment.

Download a copy of a remote repository (from GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket) to your computer, including its full history.

From Ancient Greek κλών (klṓn, “twig, slip used for propagation”).

Duplicates not merely the present surface state of a repository, but the entire unbroken ancestral chain of commits, tags, and tree manifests since the first recorded epoch.

See which files are changed, staged, or untracked, and which branch you are on.

From Latin status (“standing, position, posture, condition of being”).

The diagnostic survey that reveals modifications untracked, amendments staged for immortality, and divergences between the scribe’s immediate folio and the remote beacon.

Set your Git username and email, default branch name, editor, and aliases, globally or per repository.

From Latin configurare (“to fashion, shape, form symmetrically”).

Maintains three distinct layers of institutional policy: system-wide (/etc/gitconfig), personal scribe level (~/.gitconfig), and local repository charter (.git/config).

Stage changed files for the next commit: add one file, a folder, or all changes at once.

From Latin addere (“to put to, join, attach, augment”).

Git separates the scribe’s working scratchpad from the permanent historical record via the Index. Invoking add computes the SHA-1/256 hash of the modified content, casts it as an immutable blob in .git/objects, and updates the index register.

Save your staged changes to history with a commit message. Also used to amend (edit) the last commit.

From Latin committo (“to join together, connect, entrust, perpetrate”).

Creates a tree object reflecting the staged directory structure and a commit object bearing the author attribution, committer signature, timestamp, log message, and pointer to its parent commit.

Discard local changes to a file, or unstage a file you added by mistake, without touching commits.

From Latin restaurare (“to rebuild, renew, reinstate, repair”).

Introduced in modern Git dispensations to separate file checkout responsibilities from branch switching rituals, restore cleanly returns parchments to their clean index or HEAD condition.

Delete a file from the repository and stage the removal, or stop tracking a file but keep it on disk.

From Old French remouvoir, Latin removere (“to move back, remove, take away”).

Registers a deletion event in the index while deleting the physical file from the disk, preparing a commit that formally terminates the file’s tenure in the active lineage.

Mark a specific commit with a version label such as v1.0.0, list tags, push tags, or delete a tag.

From Middle English tagge (“a small hanging piece, a label attached to something”).

Unlike a branch, a tag never moves. Lightweight tags are just a name pointing at a commit; annotated tags (-a) are full objects that store the tagger, date, and a message, and can be GPG-signed. Use annotated tags for releases.

Remove untracked files and folders from your working directory, with a dry run to preview first.

From Old English clǣne (“free from dirt, pure”).

Removes files Git is not tracking — build output, stray logs, generated files. Because untracked files were never committed, Git has no copy of them: once cleaned, they are gone for good. Always preview with -n first.

List, create, rename, or delete branches, including deleting local branches that are already merged.

From Old French branche, Late Latin branca (“paw, footprint, limb of tree”).

In Git, a branch is not a duplicated folder of files; it is merely a 41-byte text file inside .git/refs/heads containing the 40-character hexadecimal SHA of its leading commit.

Change to another branch, or create a new branch and switch to it in one step.

From Middle Low German swichten (“to calm, pacify, change direction swiftly”).

Replaces the contents of the working chamber and index to reflect the state of the designated branch, redirecting the symbolic ref .git/HEAD.

Combine another branch into your current branch, and resolve merge conflicts when they happen.

From Latin mergere (“to plunge into, immerse, dip, combine into a unified stream”).

Calculates the Best Common Ancestor of the active and target branches, synthesizes the delta, and unless executed as a fast-forward, fashions an illuminated Merge Commit possessing two distinct parent lineages.

Move your commits on top of another branch for a linear history; squash or edit commits with interactive rebase.

Compound of Latin re- (“again, back”) + basis (“foundation, foot, pedestal”).

Rebase takes commits unique to the current branch, creates temporary diff patches, resets the branch pointer to the new base upstream commit, and replays each patch sequentially, forging entirely new commits with updated parentage.

Older command to switch branches, create a branch, view an old commit, or discard file changes.

From check + out, as in borrowing a book from a library.

Before Git 2.23, checkout did two unrelated jobs: moving between branches and overwriting files. Those were split into `git switch` (branches) and `git restore` (files). You will still see checkout everywhere in tutorials, scripts and Stack Overflow answers, so it is worth recognising.

Copy a single commit from another branch onto your current branch.

Idiomatic: to select the choicest fruits while leaving the rest upon the orchard branch.

Introduces the changes made by one or more existing commits, generating a fresh commit on the currently active branch with an independent hash and timestamp.

Undo a commit safely by creating a new commit that reverses it, without rewriting shared history.

From Latin revertere (“to turn back, come back, return”).

The honorable and safe path of undoing history: rather than expunging past blunders from the ledger, revert records an explicit corrective amendment, preserving the integrity of published public records.

Undo the last commit or move a branch back to an earlier commit, keeping or discarding your changes (soft, mixed, hard).

From Middle English resetten, French recépter (“to receive back, set again”).

Possesses three ascending degrees of severity: --soft (moves HEAD only), --mixed (moves HEAD and resets the index), and --hard (moves HEAD, resets index, and obliterates working desk modifications).

View commit history: one-line log, branch graph, filter by author or date, or see the history of a file.

From Old Norse lág (“felled tree trunk, ship’s logbook recording nautical progress”).

Traverses the directed acyclic graph (DAG) backward from the current HEAD node, deciphering commit messages, author signatures, dates, and topological connections.

Show what changed between your working files, staged changes, commits, or branches.

From Latin differre (“to carry apart, put off, defer, differ, disagree”).

Calculates the minimal edit distance (using Myers or Histogram algorithms) between two distinct states of the repository parchment, displaying additions in ink and deletions in vermilion.

See who last changed each line of a file, and in which commit.

From Old French blasmer, Greek βλασφημεῖν (blasphēmeîn, “to speak ill of, blaspheme”).

While colloquial developers refer to it as "blame", historical purists often evoke its synonym `git annotate`. It serves as the ultimate provenance ledger for intellectual attribution.

Show the details and changes of a single commit or tag, or view a file as it was in an older commit.

From Old English scēawian (“to look at, behold, examine”).

Where `git log` lists many commits, `git show` zooms in on one object. With no arguments it shows the latest commit. With `<commit>:<path>` it prints the full contents of a file at that commit, without checking anything out.

Find which commit introduced a bug by binary-searching through history, manually or with an automated test.

From Latin bi- (“two”) + secare (“to cut”): to cut in two.

You mark one commit as good (bug absent) and one as bad (bug present). Git checks out the midpoint; you test and answer good or bad; Git halves the range again. Even across 1,000 commits it takes only about 10 steps to pinpoint the culprit.

Download new commits and branches from the remote without changing your local files.

From Old English feccan (“to reach, gain, seek, take, retrieve”).

The prudent and scholarly way to inspect distant developments: fetches all new commit objects from a designated remote harbor and updates remote-tracking references (e.g. origin/main) safely in the background.

Update your current branch with changes from the remote: fetch, then merge or rebase.

From Old English pullian (“to draw with force, pluck, tug”).

Brings your active local branch into parity with its upstream tracking counterpart by fetching remote updates and immediately integrating them into your current working lineage.

Upload your local commits to the remote repository, set the upstream branch, or force push safely.

From Old French pousser, Latin pulsare (“to push, strike, beat, propel forward”).

Uploads newly consecrated commit objects, trees, and blobs to the remote depository and requests that the remote reference pointer be advanced to your new local SHA.

Show, add, rename, or remove remote repositories such as origin and upstream, and change a remote URL.

From Latin remotus (“distant, far off”), past participle of removere.

A remote is just a short name for a URL. `git clone` creates one called origin automatically. Forks typically add a second remote called upstream pointing at the original project, so you can pull its changes into your fork.

Recover lost commits or deleted branches, and undo a bad reset or rebase, using the log of where HEAD has been.

Portmanteau of Reference + Log: the chronicle of reference movements.

When all seems lost—after a catastrophic `reset --hard`, a botched rebase, or an accidental branch deletion—the Reflog remains your immortal salvation. It records every moment HEAD changed location locally, even if commits were severed from branch tips.

Temporarily save uncommitted changes so you can switch branches, then bring them back later.

Colloquial English stash (“to store something safely in a concealed repository”).

Captures the unfinished drafts from your working desk and index, records them as special commit objects under refs/stash, and restores your working tree to pristine HEAD tranquility.

Check the repository for corruption, and find dangling or lost commits that can still be recovered.

File System Consistency Check: UNIX ritual of forensic integrity verification.

Audits every blob, tree, commit, and tag object in .git/objects, detecting corrupted checksums, broken pointers, and locating dangling objects unlinked to any named branch.