Common Git Commands🔗

This page contains common commands used to work with GitHub repositories via git. This is by no means an exhaustive list of commands.

Basics🔗

git clone https://url-to-repo OR git@github.com:repo/location.git

  • Clone a GitHub repo. Two methods: HTTPS or SSH. SSH is recommended as it will not require a token every time you interact with the repo (push/pull/etc) on MSI. Learn how to set up SSH with GitHub on this page. If you do use HTTPS on MSI you will need to create a personal access token and enter it every time you interact with the repo.
  • If you would like to only clone a specific branch, add -b branch_name --single-branch after clone.

git status

  • Check the status of the repo you're working on. This will tell you what changes have been made and what branch you're on.

git checkout -b branch_name

  • Move to a new/different GitHub branch. If the branch already exists, do not include the -b.

  • git branch new_branch_name also creates a new branch but doesn't also move you to the new branch

git add file_or_folder

  • Add changes from a specific file/folder to your commit. To add multiple files at once there are several options:

    • -A to add all new, modified, and deleted files

    • -u to add all modified and deleted files but not new files

git commit -m "commit message"

  • Commit a set of changes, make sure you have a descriptive message

git push

  • Push your commit to the GitHub repo

  • If you made a new branch locally, to add it to the origin, run git push --set-upstream origin branch-name

git stash

  • This will stash your changes on your branch so you can checkout a different branch without losing your progress

  • Use git stash pop to unstash your changes

git pull

  • Pull the contents of the GitHub repo to your local computer

Advanced🔗

If your branch is out of date from the main branch:

git checkout main
git pull main
git checkout branch_to_update
git rebase main
  • If you have already made changes on your branch but want to update your branch with main, use git stash before you checkout main and git stash pop after you rebase to main.

If a branch name changed on GitHub but it still has the old name locally and you can no longer push to/pull from the old branch name:

git branch -m old_name new_name
git fetch origin
git branch -u origin/new_name new_name
git remote set-head origin -a

If you only want to clone a specific subdirectory from a repository:

mkdir <repo>
cd <repo>
git init
git remote add -f origin <repo-url>
git config core.sparseCheckout true
echo "some/dir/" >> .git/info/sparse-checkout
echo "another/dir/" >> .git/info/sparse-checkout
cat .git/info/sparse-checkout # Check which folders you've added
git pull origin master

If you have a version of Git above 2.25.0, there is a git sparse-checkout command. These replace the git config and echo commands from above. 

git sparse-checkout init
# Same as git config core.sparseCheckout true
git sparse-checkout set "some/dir"
# Same as echo "some/dir/" >> .git/info/sparse-checkout
git sparse-checkout list
# Same as cat .git/info/sparse-checkout

History Scrub🔗

If you need to remove a file or directory containing sensitive data from your Git repository's history on GitHub, you can use these commands.

To remove a specific file from the Git history:

git filter-branch --force --index-filter "git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch PATH-TO-YOUR-FILE" --prune-empty --tag-name-filter cat -- --all

To remove an entire directory from the Git history:

git filter-branch --tree-filter 'rm -rf PATH-TO-YOUR-DIRECTORY' --prune-empty

After you've executed either of the above commands, follow the next steps, which are the same for both file and directory removal:

Remove references to original commits with the following commands:

git for-each-ref --format="%(refname)" refs/original/ | xargs -I {} git update-ref -d {}

Run Git Garbage Collection to optimize the repository:

git gc --prune=now
git gc --aggressive --prune=now

To apply the changes to your remote GitHub repository, use force pushes for both branches and tags:

git push origin --force --all
git push origin --force --tags

For more information on these commands, you can also refer to this source: How to remove sensitive files and their commits from Git history.

By following these steps, you can effectively scrub sensitive data from your Git repository's history, making it safe for public sharing without exposing confidential information.

For questions, suggestions, or to note any errors, post an issue on our Github.