Git Cheat Sheet

Daily commands

Branching

Merging & rebasing

# Merge another branch into yours (creates merge commit)
git merge feature-branch

# Rebase your current branch on top of main
git rebase main

# Interactive rebase — squash, reorder, edit last 5 commits
git rebase -i HEAD~5

# Continue after resolving conflicts
git add <resolved-files>
git rebase --continue
# Or abort:
git rebase --abort

Golden rule: never rebase commits that have been pushed to a shared branch. Rebase rewrites history; if others have pulled those commits, you'll fork their work.

Undo recipes (the most-searched section)

Stash

git stash                    # Save changes, clean working dir
git stash -u                 # Include untracked files
git stash push -m "msg"      # Stash with a message
git stash list               # See all stashes
git stash pop                # Apply latest + remove from list
git stash apply stash@{2}    # Apply specific stash, keep it
git stash drop stash@{0}     # Delete a stash
git stash branch new-branch  # Create branch from stash

Cherry-pick & advanced

# Apply a specific commit from another branch
git cherry-pick <hash>

# Pick multiple commits
git cherry-pick <hash1> <hash2>

# Pick a range (exclusive..inclusive)
git cherry-pick <start>^..<end>

# Find which branches contain a commit
git branch --contains <hash>

# Show what changed in a single commit
git show <hash>

# Search for a string across history
git log -S "deleted-function-name" --all

# Find when a line was added
git log -L 10,20:src/file.ts

Inspecting history

Tags & releases

git tag                          # List tags
git tag -a v1.0.0 -m "Release"   # Annotated tag (preferred)
git tag v1.0.0                   # Lightweight tag
git push origin v1.0.0           # Push single tag
git push origin --tags           # Push all tags
git tag -d v1.0.0                # Delete local
git push origin --delete v1.0.0  # Delete remote

Configuration shortcuts

# Identity
git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "you@example.com"

# Default branch name
git config --global init.defaultBranch main

# Push only current branch by default
git config --global push.default current

# Useful aliases
git config --global alias.co checkout
git config --global alias.br branch
git config --global alias.st status
git config --global alias.lg "log --oneline --graph --all"
git config --global alias.unstage "restore --staged"