10 Essential GitHub & Git Tricks to Supercharge Your Workflow

Git and GitHub are powerful tools, and even experienced users may miss many useful details.

GitHub shortcuts

Shortcut keys: t and w – Press t on a source‑code browsing page to open fuzzy file‑name search, and press w on a repository home page to filter branches.

Press ? on any GitHub page to display available shortcuts.

Ignore spaces – Append ?w=1 to any diff URL to collapse whitespace.

Range filter commits – Use URLs like github.com/user/repo/compare/{range} where {range} can be sha1…sha2, master…my-branch, or time‑based ranges such as master@{1.day.ago}…master to view commits from a specific period.

.diff and .patch – Append .diff or .patch to a compare, merge‑request, or comment URL to obtain the raw diff or patch text.

Email reply – You can comment directly from a GitHub notification email; GitHub will correctly attach the comment.

Link lines – Clicking a line or selecting multiple lines with SHIFT on a file view updates the URL, making it easy to share specific code snippets.

Watch a user – Mentioning a user in pull requests, issues, or comments subscribes you to all their future notifications.

Auto‑linking – SHA hashes and issue numbers (e.g., #1) are automatically linked; you can also link to other repositories using user/repo@sha1 or user/repo#1.

hub command – hub is the GitHub command‑line tool; for example, hub pull-request creates a pull request directly from the terminal.

Useful Git commands

git log -p FILE – Show the patch for changes to a specific file, e.g., git log -p README.md.

git log -S'PATTERN' – Search commit history for changes containing a specific string, e.g., git log -S'stupid'.

git add -p – Interactively stage or unstage changes.

git rm --cached FILE – Remove a file from the index without deleting it locally, useful for discarding a previously committed ignored file.

git log ..BRANCH – Show commits reachable from BRANCH that are not in the current HEAD, e.g., git log ..master.

git branch --merged & git branch --no-merged – List branches that have been merged into the current branch or those that have not.

git branch --contains SHA – List branches that contain a specific commit SHA, helpful for verifying cherry‑picks.

git status -s – Show a concise status output.

git reflog – Display the local operation history.

git shortlog -sn – List contributors and their commit counts, similar to GitHub’s contributor list.

Git is a well‑designed tool, and mastering these common commands and GitHub shortcuts can make you more efficient and a more skilled programmer. GitHub builds on Git to provide convenient team‑collaboration features, further boosting daily productivity.