I can never remember how to do everything, but here are the notes I have on my work laptop that I refer to all the time. Maybe you’ll find them useful.

Note: multi-line examples are sometimes just different ways to do the same thing, and sometimes the recipe actually requires all the lines. You’ll have to try them out if it’s not obvious from the context.

determine if commit is in a branch

git log | grep <commit_id>
git branch --contains $COMMIT_ID
git branch --contains <commit-id> | grep <branch-name>

show history of a file even if it was deleted

git log --full-history  -- myfile

clean up old remote branches

git remote prune origin --dry-run
git fetch origin --prune
git config remote.origin.prune true

undo local changes

git checkout .

revert changes made to index

git reset

revert a single committed change

git revert <sha>

remove untracked files

git clean -f

remove untracked files and directories

git clean -fd

get first commit

git config --global alias.first "rev-list --max-parents=0 HEAD"
git first

pull and merge master into branch

git pull origin master

reset branch to be just like remote repo

git fetch origin
git reset --hard origin/branchname

search between revs for a regex

git grep <regexp> $(git rev-list <rev1>..<rev2>)

undo a reset

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2510276/how-to-undo-git-reset

git reset 'HEAD@{1}'

checkout a file from a stash

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1105253/how-would-i-extract-a-single-file-or-changes-to-a-file-from-a-git-stash

git checkout stash@{0} -- <filename>

list only files changed in stash

git diff --name-only stash@{0}

show untracked files in a stash

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12681529/in-git-is-there-a-way-to-show-untracked-stashed-files-without-applying-the-stas

“Untracked files are stored in the third parent of a stash commit.”

git show stash@{0}^3

update deleted remote branches

get fetch -p

undo last commit but keep changes

git reset HEAD^

rebase on first commit

git rebase -i --root

cherry pick range

note: first hash is oldest and not included

git cherry-pick <older ref>..<newer ref>

to include the oldest hash in the range:

git cherry-pick <older ref>^..<newer ref>

compare commits of two branches

git log branch1 branch2
git log --left-right --graph --cherry-pick --oneline feature...branch

undo a commit in the middle of a commit sequence

git revert <sha>

check out commit as branch

git checkout -b branchname <sha>

split an existing commit

during rebase, mark commit to split with “edit”

when git presents the commit to edit:

1. reset state to previous commit with git reset HEAD^
2. use git add and git commit as usual to re-commit the changes over multiple commits
3. run git rebase --continue when satisfied with the new commits

change author of previous commit

interactive rebase, mark commit with “edit”

when git prompts for change:

git commit --amend --author="Author Name <email@address.com>" --no-edit