Awesome Git

Cover image

Awesome Git

A curated list of amazingly awesome Git tools, resources and shiny things.

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1. Save Your Work (Optional)

If you have uncommitted changes in the up branch, stash them to avoid losing work:

git stash

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2. Update the default Branch

Switch to the default branch and bring it up to date:

git checkout default
git pull origin default

This will pull the latest changes from the remote default branch into your local default branch.

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3. Reconcile Diverging Branches

If you need to merge changes from default into up, switch to the up branch and merge:

git checkout up
git merge default

If there are merge conflicts, Git will prompt you to resolve them manually. Once resolved, continue with:

git add .
git commit -m "Resolved merge conflicts"

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4. Push Changes to up (Optional)

If you’ve updated the up branch and want to push it to the remote repository:

git push origin up

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5. Fix Force Push Error

If you’re trying to push to main but it doesn’t exist locally or remotely, confirm the branch name:

git branch -r

If main exists remotely but not locally, fetch and check it out:

git fetch origin
git checkout main

Then push changes:

git push origin main

If main does not exist and you’re using default as the main branch, continue using default.

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6. Remove Cached Files

If you still need to run git rm --cached ., ensure you specify the -r flag to remove files recursively:

git rm --cached -r .

This removes all files from the staging area without deleting them from your working directory.

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7. Reset and Force Push

If you want to reset the remote branch to your local branch forcibly:

git push origin default --force

Note: Use force-push carefully, as it overwrites the remote branch with your local version.

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8. Verify Status

Check your Git status and branch alignment to confirm everything is in sync:

git status
git log --oneline --graph --all

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Optional: Automate the Workflow

If this process needs to be automated for recurring updates:

• Use a shell script to fetch, merge, and push changes.

• Schedule the script using a cron job for automation.

Contributing

Pull requests on interesting tools/projects/resources are welcome.

Table of Contents

• Awesome Git

  • Tutorial
  • Style Guide
  • Client
  • Repository Hosting
  • Self-Hosted Repository
  • Workflow
  • Hook management
  • Tools
  • Extensions

Tutorial

There are tons of learning material on the Web

• Try Git - learn Git in 15 minutes with pseudo-terminal interface
• Atlassian Git Tutorial - comprehensive tutorial on Git
• Learn Version Control with Git - freemium ebook from fournova Software (makers for Tower), associated with paid video course
• Pro Git - free Git book, also available on paper (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
• Learn how to use Git - free tutorials and resources to help you learn the basics of Git
• The Git Community Book - book built by dozens of people in the Git community
• Git Pocket Guide - a short O'Reilly book on Git
• Git Real: Code School - paid training course from Code School
• Git Branching - visual way to learn git branching
• Learn Git in a Month of Lunches - tutorial-based book by Manning Publications
• Git Magic - short book about Git
• Git from the bottom up - great series of articles about Git
• Git-It - Interactive Tutorial App that runs on your Desktop!
• Git How To - step by step intro
• Migrating to Git LFS - Use Git LFS on an existing repository to manage large files in a better way
• Explain Git with D3 - Visualized few basic Git concepts using D3.js: commit, branch, checkout, reset, revert, merge, rebase, fetch, pull, push, tag
• Making Sense of Git – A Visual Perspective - Git from a timeline and level perspective and git commands cheatsheet grouped by functionality
• Git & Git-Flow Cheat Sheet
• Git Tips
• Interactive/Contextual/Visual Cheat Sheet
• The 'Git Pretty' Flow-Chart - How to Recover from a Mess
• Software Carpentry: Git Lessons
• The Git Parable - GitHub Cofounder's Narrative-style Intro to Git Concepts
• CodeBasicsHub: Git Video Tutorials
• Intermediate Git - lower-level, more structural explanation of git concepts
• Fork and Pull Request Workflow - Very nicely explained, simple and crisp way of understanding git fork and pull request workflow.
• Git School Dude - It's a YouTube channel with a lot of great git videos. It covers everything from the basics to advanced Git topics.
• A Git Choose Your Own Adventure - I never found a git tutorial I didn't understand while doing it. Just sometimes those tutorials didn't line up very well with my actual work. This git help in the form of a choose your own adventure was a life saver when I was first starting out.
• On undoing, fixing, or removing commits in git - fairly comprehensive guide to recovering from what you did not mean to do when using git
• Deconstructing a git commit - A blog explaining how git creates and stores commit histories.
• Flight rules for Git - guide about what to do when things go wrong
• Use gitk to understand git - all important Git terms (commit, commit SHA, branch, merge, rebase) explained using gitk
• Git Cherry-pick and its usages - A blog explaining how command git cherry-pick works.
• The ultimate guide to .gitignore All about .gitignore.
• No Bullsh*t Git - free and complete explanation of git internals and the .git/ directory.

Style Guide

Style guide when you work with git

• Udacity Nanodegree Style Guide

Client

Git clients are available on every platform, from mainframe to your mobile device

• GitHub Desktop - Git Client by GitHub. works with GitHub and GitHub Enterprise seamlessly
• SourceTree - free (in-beer) GUI client. Windows and Mac only
• Tower - a popular non-free Git GUI client. Mac and Windows
• GitKraken - a cross Git client for Windows, Mac & Linux. Electron based. Free for non-commercial use and paid Pro version is available.
• Fork - An awesome and free git client for macOS and Windows
• TortoiseGit - an easy-to-use Git client on Windows. well-integrated with Windows Explorer.
• SmartGit - a commercial comprehensive SCM client with Git, SVN, Mercurial. cross-platform (works on Windows, Mac and Linux)
• RabbitVCS - TortoiseSVN inspired graphic tool for version control systems, with Nautilus and Thunar integration
• gitg - a open-source GTK+ GUI client
• git-cola - a cross-platform Git GUI client
• SGit - Git client for Android 4.x
• Ungit - The easiest way to use git. On any platform. Anywhere.
• GitUp - a clean, minimal Git client. Mac only.
• GitExtensions - a shell extension, a Visual Studio 2010-2015 plugin and a standalone Git repository tool.
• WorkingCopy - a powerful Git client for iOS. Free with in-app purchase to unlock the ability to push commits.
• Git Add-ons - Enhance the basic git CLI
• Magit - A Git porcelain inside Emacs
• Vershd - a free for personal use effortless Git GUI for Windows, Mac, & Linux.
• lazygit - A simple terminal UI for git commands, written in Go
• Gittyup - a graphical Git client designed to help you understand and manage your source code history.

Repository Hosting

People have plenty of options to host their source code

• GitHub - the de-facto git hosting service. Perfect integration with most external services.

  • Awesome GitHub - Resources & Learning for GitHub

    • GitHub Cheat Sheet
    • GitHub Browser Extensions
• BitBucket - well-known for its free private repository (5 user max).
• Jetbrains Space - Jetbrains all-in-one solution for software teams, with IM, ticket tracking, source control.
• GitLab.com - a free Git repository hosting service served by GitLab EE. Unlimited repositories and private collaborators
• Azure DevOps - cloud service for software development formerly known as Visual Studio Team Services, Visual Studio Online and Team Foundation Service Preview
• AWS CodeCommit - a SaaS service provided by Amazon Web Service on high availability infrastructure
• Kiln - paid Git repository hosting service
• Deveo - a paid repository hosting service with support for Git, Subversion, Mercurial, WebDAV

Self-Hosted Repository

Or you can host the code yourselves

• Gitolite - a simple with fine-grained access control
• GitHub Enterprise - self-hosted solution provided from GitHub
• Bitbucket Server - self-hosted refrom Atlassian. Good integration with JIRA and other Atlassian products
• GitLab CE/EE - a popular open-source Git (CE) with paid support option (EE).
• Upsource - recent offer from Jetbrains, a famous developer-oriented software company. Code repository hosting feature pending. Free for 10 users. Good integration with YouTrack and TeamCity

  • Upsource is no longer available as a commercial product as of February 1, 2022.*
• Gogs - a self-hosted Git Service written in Go.
• Gitea - a community managed fork of Gogs, lightweight code hosting solution written in Go.
• onedev - Self-hosted Git Server with Kanban and CI/CD
• GitBucket - a GitHub clone powered by Scala.
• GitBlit - Pure Java Stack for managing, view, and serving Git repositories.
• Apache Allura - an open source implementation of project hosting platform
• Phabricator - an integrated set of powerful tools to help companies build higher quality software

  • Effective June 1, 2021: Phabricator is no longer actively maintained.*
• RhodeCode CE/EE - a platform delivering enterprise source code management
• Soft Serve - a tasty, self-hostable Git server for the command line

Workflow

Inexpensive branching allows people adopt workflows other than the classic centralized workflow

• Pro Git - Distributed Workflows
• Atlassian Git Tutorial - Comparing Workflows
• Patterns for Managing Source Code Branches
• Branching Models article from Nyx

Comparing workflows

No single workflow fits everyone's need

• Gitflow - the most well-known Git workflow model
• GitHub flow - a simple branching model with a single master
• GitLab flow
• Git DMZ Flow
• Aoneflow - an interesting branch model which delays the final merge to production branch, adopted by Alibaba. more article (in Chinese text) at 1, 2
• Agit-flow - Inspired by Gerrit workflow, Agit-flow is a centralized git workflow and used in Alibaba’s internal source code platform

Hook management

Git provide hooks at commit/push phrase, allowing integration with and code quality checking tool and Continuous Integration (CI)

• pre-commit - a framework for managing and maintaining multi-language pre-commit hooks.
• husky - modern native Git hooks made easy.
• Overcommit - a extendable Git hook manager written with Ruby.
• lefthook - fast and powerful Git hooks manager for any type of project.
• Mookme - A simple and easy-to-use, yet powerful and language agnostic git hook for monorepos.
• quickhook - a fast, Unix'y, opinionated Git hook runner.
• more on https://githooks.com/

Tools

Various tools for daily operations

• awesome-git-addons - lists more than 20 git addons including all available commands
• myrepos - a tool to manage multiple version control repositories
• mu-repo - a tool to help in dealing with multiple git repositories
• multi-gitter - a tool to make changes in multiple repositories simultaneously
• gitwalk - Bulk processing of git repos
• gr - a tool for managing multiple git repositories
• BFG Repo-Cleaner - a simpler, faster alternative to git-filter-branch for cleansing bad data out of your Git repository history
• GitIgnore Collection - collection of gitignore files for various programming language
• etckeeper - a collection of tools to let /etc be stored in a git repository
• git-extras – git utilities adding useful git commands.
• git-extra-commands - Another collection of useful git commands.
• git-follow - a tool for following lifetime changes of a file throughout the history of a Git repository.
• Gitrob - a command line tool to find sensitive information lingering in publicly available files on GitHub
• gitFS - a FUSE file system that fully integrates with git
• Gitless - an experimental version of Git that changes some of Git's underlying concepts
• ghq — Organization for remote repositories
• bash-git-prompt - An informative and fancy bash prompt for Git users
• conventional-changelog - a set of tools for parsing conventional commit messages from git histories
• release-it - Automate releases for Git repositories and/or npm packages. Changelog generation, GitHub/GitLab releases, etc.
• gickup - Backup repos from various hosters to local or other hosters.
• git-absorb - git commit --fixup, but automatic
• jc --git-log - Convert your git log to JSON.
• gitbackup - a tool to backup your Bitbucket, GitHub and GitLab repositories.
• soba - scheduled backups of repositories from popular providers with change detection.
• tig - text-mode interface for git.

Extensions

Git is designed for source control management. but people extend the idea and push version control to everywhere

• Git Large File Storage - practical solution for versioning large files. supported by GitHub
• Git Virtual File System or GVFS - solution for managing very large Git repository while maintaining speed and efficiency of most operations. in developement by Microsoft.
• git-annex - allow managing large binaries among machines, as if operation a normal git repository. possible to creates a synchronised folder with git-annex assistant.