Git Tips That Actually Save Time

Let's be real... we all use like 5 Git commands most of the time. But there's some good stuff that can make your life easier.

Aliases Are Your Friend

First thing, set up some aliases. Add these to your .gitconfig:

[alias]
  co = checkout
  br = branch
  st = status
  last = log -1 HEAD
  undo = reset HEAD~1

Now you can type git st instead of git status. Small thing, but it adds up.

Useful Commands

See What Changed

Want to see what you changed before committing?

git diff --staged

Oops, Wrong Branch

Started working on the wrong branch? No problem:

git stash
git checkout correct-branch
git stash pop

Clean Commit History

Interactive rebase is powerful. You can squash commits, reorder them, edit messages:

git rebase -i HEAD~3  # Work with last 3 commits

Find Who Broke It

Someone introduced a bug? Git blame shows you who changed each line:

git blame filename.js

But honestly, it's usually you from 6 months ago...

Working with Remotes

Update Your Fork

Keep your fork updated with the original repo:

git remote add upstream https://github.com/original/repo.git
git fetch upstream
git merge upstream/main

Delete Remote Branch

Cleaned up locally but the remote branch is still there?

git push origin --delete branch-name

Pro Tips

• Use git add -p to stage specific parts of a file
• git log --oneline --graph gives you a nice visual history
• .gitignore works retroactively with git rm -r --cached .
• Commit early, commit often (you can always squash later)

The best Git tip? Don't be afraid to mess up. You can almost always undo things in Git. Just maybe don't force push to main...