Git Core Commands

Git is a distributed version control system. These are the day-to-day commands you will use in every project - mastering them is essential for any developer workflow.

Initializing & Staging

Every Git workflow starts with initializing a repository and staging changes. The staging area (index) lets you build up exactly the changes you want in your next commit.

# Initialize a new repository
git init
git init my-project   # Create new directory and init inside it

# Clone an existing repo
git clone https://github.com/user/repo.git
git clone https://github.com/user/repo.git my-folder  # Into specific folder
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/user/repo.git  # Shallow clone (faster)

# Check working tree status
git status
git status -s          # Short/compact format

# Stage files
git add file.txt               # Stage specific file
git add src/                   # Stage entire directory
git add .                      # Stage all changes in current directory
git add -p                     # Interactively stage hunks (patch mode)
git add -u                     # Stage only tracked files (no new files)

# Unstage files
git restore --staged file.txt  # Unstage (modern syntax)
git reset HEAD file.txt        # Unstage (older syntax)

Committing Changes

Commits are snapshots of your project. A good commit message describes what changed and why. Use the imperative mood: "Add feature" not "Added feature".

# Commit staged changes
git commit -m "Add user authentication"

# Stage all tracked files and commit in one step
git commit -am "Fix typo in README"

# Open editor for a multi-line commit message
git commit

# Amend the last commit (before pushing!)
git commit --amend -m "Corrected commit message"
git commit --amend --no-edit   # Amend without changing the message

# Empty commit (useful for triggering CI)
git commit --allow-empty -m "Trigger CI build"

Viewing History & Differences

git log and git diff are your windows into the project history and current state of changes.

# View commit log
git log
git log --oneline          # Compact one-line format
git log --oneline --graph  # ASCII branch graph
git log --oneline -10      # Last 10 commits
git log --author="Alice"   # Filter by author
git log --since="2 weeks ago"
git log -- src/auth.ts     # History for a specific file

# View differences
git diff                   # Unstaged changes vs last commit
git diff --staged          # Staged changes vs last commit
git diff HEAD              # All uncommitted changes
git diff main..feature     # Compare two branches
git diff abc123 def456     # Compare two commits
git diff HEAD~1            # Compare with one commit ago

Undoing Changes

Git gives you multiple ways to undo mistakes. Choose the right tool depending on whether you have pushed changes or not.

# Discard changes in working directory
git restore file.txt        # Discard unstaged changes (modern)
git checkout -- file.txt    # Discard unstaged changes (older)

# Reset commits (do NOT use on pushed commits)
git reset --soft HEAD~1     # Undo last commit, keep changes staged
git reset --mixed HEAD~1    # Undo last commit, keep changes unstaged (default)
git reset --hard HEAD~1     # Undo last commit, discard all changes

# Revert a commit (safe - creates new commit to undo)
git revert abc123
git revert HEAD             # Revert last commit

# Stash uncommitted changes temporarily
git stash                   # Stash working changes
git stash push -m "WIP: auth feature"  # Named stash
git stash list              # List all stashes
git stash pop               # Apply most recent stash and remove it
git stash apply stash@{1}   # Apply specific stash without removing
git stash drop stash@{0}    # Delete specific stash
git stash clear             # Delete all stashes