Oh Shit, Git!?!

https://ohshitgit.com/

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Magic Time Machine

Oh shit, I did something terribly wrong, please tell me git has a magic time machine!?

git reflog
# you will see a list of everything you've done in git, across all branches
# each one has an index like HEAD@{index}
# find the one before you broke everything

git reset HEAD@{index}
# magic time machine

git reset --hard HEAD@{6}

You can use this to recover accidentally deleted work, undo bad merges, or go back to a time when things actually worked. reflog is extremely powerful and very commonly used for recovery.

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Add Small Change After Committed

Oh shit, I committed and immediately realized I need to make one small change!

# make your change
git add .    # or add individual files
git commit --amend --no-edit

Your last commit now includes the new change.

⚠️ Warning: Never amend commits that have already been pushed to a public/shared branch.

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Change Last Commit Message

Oh shit, I need to change the message on my last commit!

git commit --amend -m "Updated commit message"

Follow the prompts to update the commit message.

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Commit to a New Branch Instead of Master

Oh shit, I accidentally committed something to master that should have been on a new branch!

# create a new branch from current state
git branch some-new-branch-name

# remove last commit from master
git reset HEAD~ --hard

# switch to new branch
git checkout some-new-branch-name

Your commit now lives safely in the new branch.

⚠️ This does not work if the commit was already pushed to a public branch.

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Rectify Committing to the Correct Branch

Oh shit, I accidentally committed to the wrong branch!

Method 1: Stash

git reset HEAD~ --soft
git stash
git checkout name-of-the-correct-branch
git stash pop
git add .
git commit -m "your message here"

Method 2: Cherry-pick

git checkout name-of-the-correct-branch
git cherry-pick master

git checkout master
git reset HEAD~ --hard

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Differences Not Showing

Oh shit, I ran diff but nothing happened!?

If files were already staged, use:

git diff --staged

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Undo n-th Commit

Oh shit, I need to undo a commit from several commits ago!

git log
# find the commit hash

git revert <commit-hash>

Git creates a new commit that reverses the selected commit.

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Undo Changes to a File

Oh shit, I need to undo my changes to a file!

git log
# find a commit before the change

git checkout <commit-hash> -- path/to/file
git commit -m "Reverted file to previous version"

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Delete and Restart

Fuck this noise, I give up.

cd ..
sudo rm -r fucking-git-repo-dir
git clone https://some.github.url/fucking-git-repo-dir.git
cd fucking-git-repo-dir

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Hard Reset to Remote (Destructive)

If your branch is completely broken and you want to reset to the remote state:

git fetch origin
git checkout master
git reset --hard origin/master
git clean -d --force

Repeat checkout / reset / clean for any other broken branches.