Git Simple Cheatsheet

This is a collection of some of the daily driving and most used git commands for easier reference and navigation.

Configuration

• Set author name

  1	git config --global user.name "Your Name"

• Set author email

  1	git config --global user.email "email@example.com"

📜 Replace the quoted values with your own.

Initialization

• Start a new repo in an empty directory

  1

  git init

• Clone an existing repository

  1	git clone "repo-user/repo-name"

• Clone including submodules

  1	git clone --recurse-submodules user/name

  📜 Add -j8 to speed up large clones.

• Populate submodules in an already-cloned repo

  1	git submodule update --init --recursive

Staging and Committing

• Check status

  1	git status

• Stage specific paths

  1	git add "file|folder"

• Stage everything except ignored files

  1	git add --all

  or

  1

  git add .

• Commit staged changes

  1	git commit -m "message"

• Commit tracked changes without re-adding

  1	git commit -am "message"

  📜 git add . also picks up new (unignored) files; git add -u does not.

Cleaning

• Drop tracked files that are now ignored (clears stage)

  1	git rm -r --cached .

  Then commit; to remove ignored files locally: git clean -d -x -f.

• Remove ignored/untracked files locally only

  1	git clean -d -x -f

Reset and Restore

• Unstage changes (Stage → Work)

  1	git reset "file|folder"

  📜 git reset . unstages everything; git reset --hard also discards working copy changes.

• Restore one file

  1	git restore file/folder

• Restore everything

  1	git restore .

History and Inspection

• Full log

  1

  git log

• File/directory history with patches

  1	git log -p path/to/target

• Commit overview with per-file stats

  1	git log --stat

• One-line graph of current branch

  1	git log --oneline --graph

• One-line graph of everything

  1	git log --oneline --decorate --all --graph

• Search commit messages (case-insensitive)

  1	git log -i --grep search_string

• Last N commits by author

  1	git log -n number --author=author

• Commits between dates (yyyy-mm-dd)

  1	git log --before="2017-01-29" --after="2017-01-17"

Branches

• List branches (add -r for remote, -a for all)

  1	git branch

• Create a branch

  1	git branch branch-name

• Rename current branch

  1	git branch -M main

• Switch branches (or checkout a commit)

  1	git checkout branch-name

• Delete a branch

  1	git branch -D branch-name

Merging

• Merge another branch into current

  1	git merge another-branch

  📜 For unrelated histories: git merge main --allow-unrelated-histories.

• Prefer current branch changes on conflict

  1	git merge -s ours another-branch

• Prefer incoming branch changes on conflict

  1	git merge -X theirs another-branch

Remotes and Sync

• List remotes

  1	git remote -v

• Add a remote

  1	git remote add origin url

• Remove a remote

  1	git remote remove origin

• Push (and set upstream once)

  1	git push -u remote branch

  📜 After upstream is set, use git push.

• Pull latest

  1

  git pull

Submodules

• Add a submodule

  1	git submodule add "https://github.com/user/repo-name" "path/"

  Track them in .gitmodules; to update, cd into the submodule, git pull, then stage in the parent.

Large Files (Git LFS)

• Install Git LFS (once per user)

  1	git lfs install

  Ensure files are tracked in .gitattributes; for migrations see git-lfs-migrate and the docs below.

• Docs: Git Large File Storage

Authentication (GitHub)

You can simply use github-cli to authenticate with GitHub. Install it, and run,

1

gh auth login

Signing Commits (GPG)

To sign commits, and send signed tags, you need to have GPG installed and configured. Follow this guide,

• https://docs.github.com/en/authentication/managing-commit-signature-verification/generating-a-new-gpg-key

To sign all commits by default,

1

git config --global commit.gpgSign true

Troubleshooting

• Handy reference when things go sideways: Oh Shit, Git!?!

Acknowledgements

• Copyright: https://github.com/tldr-pages/tldr