git-advanced-workflows

SKILL.md

Git Advanced Workflows

Master advanced Git techniques to maintain clean history, collaborate effectively, and recover from any situation with confidence.

When to Use This Skill

Cleaning up commit history before merging

Applying specific commits across branches

Finding commits that introduced bugs

Working on multiple features simultaneously

Recovering from Git mistakes or lost commits

Managing complex branch workflows

Preparing clean PRs for review

Synchronizing diverged branches

Core Concepts

1. Interactive Rebase
Interactive rebase is the Swiss Army knife of Git history editing.

Common Operations:

pick: Keep commit as-is

reword: Change commit message

edit: Amend commit content

squash: Combine with previous commit

fixup: Like squash but discard message

drop: Remove commit entirely

Basic Usage:

# Rebase last 5 commits
git rebase -i HEAD~5

# Rebase all commits on current branch
git rebase -i $(git merge-base HEAD main)

# Rebase onto specific commit
git rebase -i abc123

2. Cherry-Picking

Apply specific commits from one branch to another without merging entire branches.

# Cherry-pick single commit
git cherry-pick abc123

# Cherry-pick range of commits (exclusive start)
git cherry-pick abc123..def456

# Cherry-pick without committing (stage changes only)
git cherry-pick -n abc123

# Cherry-pick and edit commit message
git cherry-pick -e abc123

3. Git Bisect

Binary search through commit history to find the commit that introduced a bug.

# Start bisect
git bisect start

# Mark current commit as bad
git bisect bad

# Mark known good commit
git bisect good v1.0.0

# Git will checkout middle commit - test it
# Then mark as good or bad
git bisect good  # or: git bisect bad

# Continue until bug found
# When done
git bisect reset

Automated Bisect:

# Use script to test automatically
git bisect start HEAD v1.0.0
git bisect run ./test.sh

# test.sh should exit 0 for good, 1-127 (except 125) for bad

4. Worktrees

Work on multiple branches simultaneously without stashing or switching.

# List existing worktrees
git worktree list

# Add new worktree for feature branch
git worktree add ../project-feature feature/new-feature

# Add worktree and create new branch
git worktree add -b bugfix/urgent ../project-hotfix main

# Remove worktree
git worktree remove ../project-feature

# Prune stale worktrees
git worktree prune

5. Reflog

Your safety net - tracks all ref movements, even deleted commits.

# View reflog
git reflog

# View reflog for specific branch
git reflog show feature/branch

# Restore deleted commit
git reflog
# Find commit hash
git checkout abc123
git branch recovered-branch

# Restore deleted branch
git reflog
git branch deleted-branch abc123

Detailed patterns and worked examples

Detailed pattern documentation lives in references/details.md. Read that file when the navigation tier above is insufficient.

Best Practices

Always Use --force-with-lease: Safer than --force, prevents overwriting others' work

Rebase Only Local Commits: Don't rebase commits that have been pushed and shared

Descriptive Commit Messages: Future you will thank present you

Atomic Commits: Each commit should be a single logical change

Test Before Force Push: Ensure history rewrite didn't break anything

Keep Reflog Aware: Remember reflog is your safety net for 90 days

Branch Before Risky Operations: Create backup branch before complex rebases

# Safe force push
git push --force-with-lease origin feature/branch

# Create backup before risky operation
git branch backup-branch
git rebase -i main
# If something goes wrong
git reset --hard backup-branch

Common Pitfalls

Rebasing Public Branches: Causes history conflicts for collaborators

Force Pushing Without Lease: Can overwrite teammate's work

Losing Work in Rebase: Resolve conflicts carefully, test after rebase

Forgetting Worktree Cleanup: Orphaned worktrees consume disk space

Not Backing Up Before Experiment: Always create safety branch

Bisect on Dirty Working Directory: Commit or stash before bisecting

Recovery Commands

# Abort operations in progress
git rebase --abort
git merge --abort
git cherry-pick --abort
git bisect reset

# Restore file to version from specific commit
git restore --source=abc123 path/to/file

# Undo last commit but keep changes
git reset --soft HEAD^

# Undo last commit and discard changes
git reset --hard HEAD^

# Recover deleted branch (within 90 days)
git reflog
git branch recovered-branch abc123