Git Commands

Sources:

Ordinary workflows¶

HEAD: the current state of the repo.

Download a repository¶

Clone a git repo from a remote repository:

git clone <url>

Checking out a specific branch:

git clone <url> -b <branchname>

If there are submodule(s) in the Git repository, you might want to clone them as well using the --recursive option.

git clone <url> --recursive

See also: SSH login to Git services like GitHub and GitLab.

Make changes and commit¶

git status      # The current state of the repository.
git add <file>  # Add a new or edited file to the staging area. i.e. telling git to track this file
git add -A      # Track all files at once
git commit -m "Commit message"  # Commit staged (added) file
git commit -am "Commit message" # Commit modified files without having to run git add beforehand
git revert <SHA>                # Make a counter commit to undo the changes. The tracked files will go back to the <SHA> commit.

Synchronize with remote: Push and pull¶

git fetch # Download objects and refs from another repository without really pull in the changes
git merge # After git fetch, merge the changes done in the remote to the local repo
git push <remote> <branch-name> # Push commits in to remote
git push --set-upstream <remote> <name-of-your-branch>  # Setup remote url before push
git pull <remote>  # Pull changes from the remote

Stash¶

To temporarily store untracked files.

git stash -u   # Store current work with untracked files
git stash pop  # Bring stashed work back to the working directory

Work with branches¶

git branch <branch_name>    # Create a new branch
git branch -a               # List all branches
git branch -d <branch_name> # Delete a branch

git checkout <branch_name>    # checkout an existing branch
git checkout -b <branch_name> # Create a new branch and checkout it

git switch <branch_name>    # Switch to a specified branch. If the branch name does not exist, create one.
git merge  <branch_name>    # Merge the branch into the current branch

Orphan branches¶

Orphan branches are unrelated to others in history. For example, gh-pages branch dedicated to GitHub pages.

git branch --orphan <branchname>  # Create a orphan branch