Stage 5 · Lesson 8 of 8

Undoing things safely

has a different undo for each situation, so means picking the right one. git restore file throws away changes you have not staged. git restore --staged file takes a file back out of the .

git commit --amend fixes your last commit, as long as you have not pushed it. git revert <hash> adds a new commit that cancels out an old one. It is safe on other people use.

git reset moves a branch back to an earlier commit. With --hard it also throws away your work, so use it only on history nobody else has. git reflog lists everywhere HEAD has been, so "lost" commits can usually be found again.

Common trapreset --hard or force-pushing to fix a mistake on a shared branch, where revert was the safe choice.

A question to check yourself, an AI practice session and 2 cheat sheet entries come when you add the roadmap to your account. Add it

Resources for this stage

Start with· follow one of these

BookFree
Pro Git
Scott Chacon and Ben Straub
The free official Git book; chapters 2 and 3 cover everything in this stage properly
CourseFree
The Missing Semester of Your CS Education
MIT · Beginner
The version control lecture teaches Git from its data model upwards, which makes commands make sense

Practise

Learn Git Branching
Visual, interactive levels for branching, merging and rebasing where you see the graph change
GitHub Skills: Introduction to GitHub
A guided exercise inside a real repository: branch, commit and open a pull request

Keep handy

Oh Shit, Git!?!
Plain-English fixes for the most common Git mistakes, for when you panic
How to Write a Git Commit Message
The seven rules of a good commit message, with reasons for each

Also worth your time

roadmap.sh: Git and GitHubGo deeper
A map of Git and GitHub topics, from basics to hooks, submodules and Actions