Git Cheat Sheet

Setup

Basic config you usually set once.

Set your name and email

git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "you@example.com"

Used for commit authorship.

See all config values

git config --list

Handy when Git is behaving weirdly and you want to see current settings.

Initialize a new repo

git init

Creates a new repository in the current folder.

Daily workflow

The bread-and-butter commands.

Check status

git status -sb

Short, useful status view with branch info.

Stage everything in current directory tree

git add .

Be careful with this. Great until you accidentally include giant files.

Stage a specific file

git add path/to/file

Safer than `git add .` when you want to be precise.

Commit staged changes

git commit -m "your message"

Creates a commit from currently staged changes.

Push current branch

git push -u origin "$(git branch --show-current)"

A good default. Better than blindly pushing `--all` most of the time.

Branches

Create, switch, and inspect branches.

List branches

git branch -a

Shows local and remote-tracking branches.

Create and switch to new branch

git switch -c my-branch

Modern replacement for `git checkout -b`.

Switch branches

git switch main

Moves you to another existing branch.

Delete merged branch

git branch -d my-branch

Deletes a local branch that has already been merged.

History and logs

Useful ways to see what happened and when.

Compact commit log

git log --oneline --decorate --graph --all -20

Great all-purpose quick history view.

Show changes for a specific commit

git show COMMIT_HASH

Displays the patch and metadata for a commit.

See commits affecting a file

git log -- path/to/file

Super useful when you need file-specific history.

See who changed each line

git blame path/to/file

Line-by-line authorship and commit info.

Undo / reset / amend

The stuff you use when you realize you messed something up.

Unstage a file

git restore --staged path/to/file

Removes a file from the staging area without deleting your edits.

Amend the most recent commit

git commit --amend --no-edit

Rewrites the last commit using the currently staged content but keeps the same message.

Undo last commit, keep changes staged

git reset --soft HEAD~1

Good when you want to redo the commit cleanly.

Undo last commit, keep changes unstaged

git reset HEAD~1

Removes the commit and unstages its contents.

Rebuild all unpushed local commits as one clean commit

git reset --soft origin/main

Very useful when local history got messy and nothing has pushed successfully yet.

Stash

Temporary parking spot for work in progress.

Stash current work

git stash push -m "WIP"

Saves your current changes and cleans the working tree.

List stashes

git stash list

Shows saved stash entries.

Apply most recent stash

git stash pop

Restores and removes the most recent stash.

Remotes and sync

Working with GitHub or any other remote.

See remote URLs

git remote -v

Shows fetch/push URLs for configured remotes.

Fetch from remote

git fetch origin

Downloads remote changes without merging them into your branch.

Pull current branch

git pull

Fetches and merges remote changes into the current branch.

Set or change origin URL

git remote set-url origin REPO_URL

Useful if the repo moved or you switched from HTTPS to SSH.

Cleanup and ignore

Keep junk files out of the repo.

Ignore file patterns

echo "*.mp4" >> .gitignore
echo "*.flac" >> .gitignore

Prevents future accidental staging of those file types.

Remove tracked file but keep it on disk

git rm --cached path/to/file

Stops tracking a file without deleting your local copy.

See which ignore rule matched a file

git check-ignore -v path/to/file

Excellent for debugging `.gitignore` behavior.

Large file sanity checks

The exact sort of thing that saves you from GitHub rejecting a push.

List tracked MP4/FLAC files

git ls-files | grep -E '\.(mp4|flac)$'

Shows whether those file types are currently tracked in the repo snapshot.

See large files in commits you are about to push

branch=$(git branch --show-current)

git rev-list --objects "origin/$branch..HEAD" |
git cat-file --batch-check="%(objecttype) %(objectname) %(objectsize) %(rest)" |
sort -k3 -n |
tail -20

Shows the largest objects in your outgoing history.

Quick check: are MP4/FLAC files still in outgoing history?

branch=$(git branch --show-current)
git rev-list --objects "origin/$branch..HEAD" | grep -E "\.(mp4|flac)$"

If this prints nothing, those files are not in what you are about to push.

Inspection and troubleshooting

Great when something feels off and you want facts instead of guesses.

See what is staged

git diff --cached --name-status

Shows staged changes, which is exactly what will go into the next commit.

See unstaged changes

git diff

Shows working-tree changes that are not yet staged.

Show commits you have locally but GitHub does not

git log --oneline origin/$(git branch --show-current)..HEAD

Great quick view of unpushed commits.

Find commits that touched a specific file type

git log --all -- '*.mp4' '*.flac'

Helps identify the commit that introduced a bad file.