git-commands.md

git commands

what I've picked up over the years about the stupid content tracker

🚽 porcelain

clean

git clean -dfx [<path>...]

delete untracked paths from the working tree. use -dfX for ignored paths.

e.g. before building or debugging to ensure a clean environment

restore¹

git restore -s origin/<branch> <path>

restore a working tree path from an origin branch.

e.g. when resolving conflicts or depending on files on another remote branch

switch¹

git switch -

switch to the previously checked-out branch

e.g. when switching to and from the main branch from a feature branch

git switch -c <new-branch> [<source-branch>]

create and switch to a <new-branch> off of an optional <source-branch>.

e.g. when starting work on a new feature branch

🔩 plumbing

update-index

git update-index --assume-unchanged <path>

ignore changes for a tracked path

e.g. when repository tracks sensitive files like .env*

additional resources

• git (Graphite Git guides)
• Git - git Documentation (Complete list of all git commands)
• GitHub Git Cheat Sheet

Footnotes

1. restore and switch are newer, generally syntactically equivallent commands to checkout. these new commands were introduced in Git 2.23 (circa 2019) to reduce the confusion around checkout. (see Git switch vs Git checkout) ↩ ↩²

need to add git merge, git rebase, and git diff