Undoing Mistakes

Which command for which situation

Situation	Command
Throw away uncommitted changes in a file	git restore <file> (the changes are lost)
Unstage a file but keep the changes	git restore --staged <file>
Change the last commit’s message, or add a forgotten file (not pushed)	git commit --amend
Undo the last commit but keep the changes	git reset --soft HEAD~1 (changes stay staged) or git reset HEAD~1 (unstaged)
Throw away local commits and changes	git reset --hard <commit> (uncommitted changes are lost; the removed commits stay in the reflog)
Undo a commit that has been pushed	git revert <commit> (adds a new commit that reverses it)
Stop a merge that went wrong	git merge --abort
Set work aside for a moment	git stash, later git stash pop
Find a commit you seem to have lost	git reflog, then git switch -c rescue <hash>

Rules of thumb

• Shared history is not rewritten. If others may have pulled the commit, use git revert. Do not use reset, amend or rebase followed by a force push.
• Look before you leap. Run git status and git log --oneline first. Commands marked as losing changes cannot be undone, because uncommitted work was never recorded.
• Committed work is hard to lose. git reflog lists where your branches have been, and unreferenced commits are kept for at least 30 days by default.
• If you really must force-push your own branch, use git push --force-with-lease, which refuses to overwrite commits you have not seen.

Try it

In a test repository, make a commit and undo it three ways: with reset --soft, with revert, and, after a reset --hard, by recovering it with reflog.