Master Advanced Git Commands: A Handy Cheat Sheet for Power Users

Navigate – Switch to the previous branch

Use git checkout - to quickly return to the branch you were on before the current checkout.

Inspect commit history

Common ways to view history:

# One‑line summary per commit
git log --oneline

# Search all commits for a keyword (e.g., "homepage")
git log --all --grep='homepage'

# Show commits authored by a specific person
git log --author="Maxence"

Recover a reset commit

If you have reset a commit and need to restore it, first list the reflog to find the lost commit, then reset to that entry.

# Show the reflog (record of HEAD moves)
git reflog

# Reset HEAD to a specific reflog entry, e.g., the 5th entry
git reset HEAD@{4}

# Or reset directly to a known commit hash
git reset --hard <commit-hash>

Clean a messy local repository

Synchronise your local branch with the remote state, discarding local changes.

git fetch origin
git checkout master
git reset --hard origin/master

Compare a feature branch with master

Show the diff between master and another branch.

git diff master..my-branch

Customize the most recent commit

Amend commit messages, add additional changes, or create an empty commit to trigger CI pipelines.

# Change the message of the last commit
git commit --amend -m "Better commit message"

# Add new changes to the previous commit without editing the message
git add . && git commit --amend --no-edit

# Create an empty commit (useful for CI rebuilds)
git commit --allow-empty -m "chore: re-trigger build"

Squash recent commits with interactive rebase

Combine several recent commits into one.

# Start an interactive rebase of the last 3 commits
git rebase -i HEAD~3

# In the editor, keep the first line as "pick" and change the others to "squash" (or "s").
# Save and quit (e.g., ":wq" in vi) to rewrite the history.

Fixup a specific earlier commit

Mark new changes as a fixup for a previous commit and let --autosquash combine them automatically.

# Stage the changes
git add .

# Create a fixup commit targeting the commit two steps back
git commit --fixup HEAD~1

# Rebase with autosquash to merge the fixup automatically (adjust the range as needed)
git rebase -i HEAD~3 --autosquash

Run a command on each commit during a rebase

Execute a test or any command for every commit in a range, aborting the rebase if the command fails.

# Run "npm test" on the last three commits
git rebase HEAD~3 --exec "npm test"

Stash utilities

Temporarily store uncommitted changes and restore them later.

# Save all tracked files with a descriptive message
git stash save "log info"

# List all stash entries
git stash list

# Apply a specific stash without removing it
git stash apply stash@{1}
# Remove that stash entry
git stash drop stash@{1}
# Or apply and drop in one step
git stash pop stash@{1}

Clean up remote-tracking branches

Remove references to branches that no longer exist on the remote, and optionally delete remote branches matching a pattern.

# Prune stale remote‑tracking branches
git fetch -p

# Delete all remote branches whose names contain "greenkeeper"
git fetch -p && git branch --remote | fgrep greenkeeper | sed 's/^.{9}//' | xargs git push origin --delete

GitHub shortcuts

Use the hub wrapper to add GitHub‑specific shortcuts.

# Alias the git command to hub (install hub first)
alias git='hub'

# Open the repository page in the default browser (GitHub only)
git browse

Useful Git aliases

Define short aliases to speed up everyday workflows.

alias g='git'
alias glog='git log --oneline --decorate --graph'
alias gst='git status'
alias gp='git push'
alias ga='git add'
alias gc='git commit -v'
alias yolo='git push --force'

# Weekly stand‑up helper function
git-standup() {
    AUTHOR=${AUTHOR:="$(git config user.name)"}
    since=yesterday
    [[ $(date +%u) == 1 ]] && since="2 days ago"
    git log --all --since "$since" --oneline --author "$AUTHOR"
}