Git Advanced Tutorial: Rebasing, Cherry-Pick, and More

Introduction

Basic Git commands (add, commit, push) handle daily work. Advanced Git techniques solve complex problems and maintain clean, professional repositories.

Interactive Rebase

Interactive rebase rewrites commit history. Use it to clean up before merging to main.

Run: git rebase -i HEAD~5

Interactive Commands

• pick - Keep commit as-is
• reword - Change commit message
• squash - Combine with previous commit
• fixup - Squash and discard message
• drop - Remove commit

Safety Rules

• Never rebase shared/pushed commits
• Use --force-with-lease if you must push rebased branches
• Always have a backup branch

Cherry-Pick

Apply specific commits from one branch to another.

Run: git cherry-pick abc123

Use Cases

• Backporting bug fixes to release branches
• Pulling specific features without full merge
• Recovering commits from deleted branches

Git Bisect

Find which commit introduced a bug using binary search.

1. Start: git bisect start
2. Mark current (buggy) as bad: git bisect bad
3. Mark known good commit: git bisect good abc123
4. Git checks out middle commit
5. Test and mark good or bad
6. Repeat until found
7. Reset: git bisect reset

Git Stash

Save uncommitted changes temporarily.

• git stash - Save changes
• git stash list - List stashes
• git stash pop - Apply and remove
• git stash apply - Apply and keep
• git stash -u - Include untracked files

Git Reflog

Reflog tracks all HEAD changes—your safety net.

Run: git reflog

Recovery Examples

• Undo accidental reset: git reset --hard HEAD@{1}
• Recover deleted branch: git checkout -b recovered HEAD@{5}
• Find lost commits: git reflog | grep commit

Conclusion

Advanced Git techniques take practice but dramatically improve your workflow. Start with interactive rebase and stash—they solve daily problems. Add bisect and reflog when you need them. Master these tools and you will handle any Git situation confidently.