A List of Helpful Git Commands

Here are a few Git commands I use daily:

$ git checkout -b <new_branch_name>
$ git push -u origin <new_branch_name>

These two commands create a new local branch (from the currently checked out branch), and push it upstream (publish it).

$ git checkout -t origin/<remote_branch>

This command allows you to checkout a remote branch. The -t flag tells Git you wish to track the branch.

$ git reset HEAD <file_path>

This command will remove files from the working directory (before committing). If <file_path> is simply a . all files in the working directory will be removed.

$ git reset --hard <commit_hash>

With the --hard flag, this command moves the pointer back to the commit specified (the <commit_hash>) and deletes all changes made after.

$ git commit -a -m "Commit message"

This commit command adds all files to the working directory before committing.

$ git add -A

This command combines git add . and git add -u. It stages all files in the working tree that are either modified, deleted, or new.

$ git checkout <parent_branch>; git pull; git checkout <child_branch>; git merge <parent_branch>

These commands are used to ensure all changes to the current branch are up to date, by merging in the parent branches recent changes.

$ git stash

Stashes all files in the working tree into a stack. This allows you to jump between branches without losing any work.

$ git stash pop

Since the stash is a stack, you can pop to reinstate the most recent work into the working tree.

$ git stash list

Or, you can simply look at the stack.

$ git pull -p

This pulls all changes from a remote, whilst also removing the remote branches that don’t have a local counterpart.

$ git checkout -- <file_path>

This command is really helpful. It allows you to completely remove all changes made on a given file (or just use . to remove all changes).

To see a full list of git commands, check out either:
http://gitref.org/ or http://git-scm.com/docs/