Git Cheat Sheet: Most Common Commands for Everyday Development

Git is one of the most important tools in a developer's daily workflow. It is used to track changes, work with branches, collaborate with a team, review code, and deploy projects.

This cheat sheet contains the most common Git commands developers use when working on real projects.

Git Configuration

Set your username

git config --global user.name "John Doe"

Set your email

git config --global user.email "john@example.com"

This information will be used in your commits.

Clone a Repository

Copy a project locally

git clone git@github.com:user/project.git

This command creates a local copy of a remote repository.

Check Project Status

Show the current status

git status

Shows modified, new, and staged files.

Pull Changes

Get the latest changes from the remote repository

git pull

This command downloads new changes and merges them into the current branch.

Add Files

Add all changed files

git add .

Add a specific file

git add file.php

After this command, files are added to the staging area and will be included in the next commit.

Create a Commit

Create a commit with a message

git commit -m "Fix checkout bug"

A commit saves staged changes in Git history.

Push Changes

Send changes to the remote repository

git push

This command uploads local commits to a remote server such as GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket.

Commit History

View commit history

git log

Short one-line history

git log --oneline

Useful when you need to quickly find a commit hash.

Working with Branches

List branches

git branch

Create a new branch and switch to it

git checkout -b feature/new-module

Switch to an existing branch

git checkout develop

Or use the newer syntax:

git switch develop

Merge Branches

Merge another branch into the current branch

git merge feature/new-module

Before running merge, make sure you are currently on the branch that should receive the changes.

Temporarily Save Changes

Save uncommitted changes

git stash

Restore the latest stashed changes

git stash pop

List stash entries

git stash list

Stash is useful when you need to quickly switch branches, but your current changes are not ready to be committed yet.

View Changes

Show file differences

git diff

This command shows what has changed before files are added to the staging area.

Undo Changes

Discard changes in a specific file

git restore file.php

Discard all uncommitted changes

git restore .

Be careful: these commands remove local unsaved changes.

Undo Commits

Undo the last commit but keep the changes in your files

git reset --soft HEAD~1

Useful when a commit was created too early or you need to change its message.

Undo the last commit together with its changes

git reset --hard HEAD~1

This command completely removes the last commit and its file changes. Use it very carefully.

Safely revert a specific commit

git revert <commit_hash>

Revert creates a new commit that cancels changes from the selected commit. This is safer for shared branches.

Remote Repositories

Show connected remote repositories

git remote -v

Change the origin URL

git remote set-url origin git@github.com:user/project.git

Remove Files

Remove a file from the project and Git

git rm file.php

After this, create a commit to save the file removal.

Tags

Create a tag

git tag v1.0.0

Push a tag to the remote repository

git push origin v1.0.0

Tags are commonly used to mark releases.

Most Popular Git Commands

git status git pull git add . git commit -m "Message" git push git branch git checkout -b feature/name git merge feature/name git stash git stash pop git diff git log --oneline

Conclusion

In everyday development, developers mostly use Git commands for checking status, creating commits, working with branches, pulling and pushing changes.

If you understand status, add, commit, pull, push, branch, merge, stash, reset, and revert, you already have enough Git knowledge for most daily development tasks.