git-reset(1) — Linux manual page

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GIT-RESET(1)                   Git Manual                   GIT-RESET(1)

NAME         top

       git-reset - Reset current HEAD to the specified state

SYNOPSIS         top

       git reset [-q] [<tree-ish>] [--] <pathspec>...
       git reset [-q] [--pathspec-from-file=<file> [--pathspec-file-nul]] [<tree-ish>]
       git reset (--patch | -p) [<tree-ish>] [--] [<pathspec>...]
       git reset [--soft | --mixed [-N] | --hard | --merge | --keep] [-q] [<commit>]

DESCRIPTION         top

       In the first three forms, copy entries from <tree-ish> to the
       index. In the last form, set the current branch head (HEAD) to
       <commit>, optionally modifying index and working tree to match.
       The <tree-ish>/<commit> defaults to HEAD in all forms.

       git reset [-q] [<tree-ish>] [--] <pathspec>..., git reset [-q]
       [--pathspec-from-file=<file> [--pathspec-file-nul]] [<tree-ish>]
           These forms reset the index entries for all paths that match
           the <pathspec> to their state at <tree-ish>. (It does not
           affect the working tree or the current branch.)

           This means that git reset <pathspec> is the opposite of git
           add <pathspec>. This command is equivalent to git restore
           [--source=<tree-ish>] --staged <pathspec>....

           After running git reset <pathspec> to update the index entry,
           you can use git-restore(1) to check the contents out of the
           index to the working tree. Alternatively, using
           git-restore(1) and specifying a commit with --source, you can
           copy the contents of a path out of a commit to the index and
           to the working tree in one go.

       git reset (--patch | -p) [<tree-ish>] [--] [<pathspec>...]
           Interactively select hunks in the difference between the
           index and <tree-ish> (defaults to HEAD). The chosen hunks are
           applied in reverse to the index.

           This means that git reset -p is the opposite of git add -p,
           i.e. you can use it to selectively reset hunks. See the
           “Interactive Mode” section of git-add(1) to learn how to
           operate the --patch mode.

       git reset [<mode>] [<commit>]
           This form resets the current branch head to <commit> and
           possibly updates the index (resetting it to the tree of
           <commit>) and the working tree depending on <mode>. Before
           the operation, ORIG_HEAD is set to the tip of the current
           branch. If <mode> is omitted, defaults to --mixed. The <mode>
           must be one of the following:

           --soft
               Does not touch the index file or the working tree at all
               (but resets the head to <commit>, just like all modes
               do). This leaves all your changed files "Changes to be
               committed", as git status would put it.

           --mixed
               Resets the index but not the working tree (i.e., the
               changed files are preserved but not marked for commit)
               and reports what has not been updated. This is the
               default action.

               If -N is specified, removed paths are marked as
               intent-to-add (see git-add(1)).

           --hard
               Resets the index and working tree. Any changes to tracked
               files in the working tree since <commit> are discarded.
               Any untracked files or directories in the way of writing
               any tracked files are simply deleted.

           --merge
               Resets the index and updates the files in the working
               tree that are different between <commit> and HEAD, but
               keeps those which are different between the index and
               working tree (i.e. which have changes which have not been
               added). If a file that is different between <commit> and
               the index has unstaged changes, reset is aborted.

               In other words, --merge does something like a git
               read-tree -u -m <commit>, but carries forward unmerged
               index entries.

           --keep
               Resets index entries and updates files in the working
               tree that are different between <commit> and HEAD. If a
               file that is different between <commit> and HEAD has
               local changes, reset is aborted.

           --[no-]recurse-submodules
               When the working tree is updated, using
               --recurse-submodules will also recursively reset the
               working tree of all active submodules according to the
               commit recorded in the superproject, also setting the
               submodules' HEAD to be detached at that commit.

       See "Reset, restore and revert" in git(1) for the differences
       between the three commands.

OPTIONS         top

       -q, --quiet
           Be quiet, only report errors.

       --refresh, --no-refresh
           Refresh the index after a mixed reset. Enabled by default.

       --pathspec-from-file=<file>
           Pathspec is passed in <file> instead of commandline args. If
           <file> is exactly - then standard input is used. Pathspec
           elements are separated by LF or CR/LF. Pathspec elements can
           be quoted as explained for the configuration variable
           core.quotePath (see git-config(1)). See also
           --pathspec-file-nul and global --literal-pathspecs.

       --pathspec-file-nul
           Only meaningful with --pathspec-from-file. Pathspec elements
           are separated with NUL character and all other characters are
           taken literally (including newlines and quotes).

       --
           Do not interpret any more arguments as options.

       <pathspec>...
           Limits the paths affected by the operation.

           For more details, see the pathspec entry in gitglossary(7).

EXAMPLES         top

       Undo add

               $ edit                                     (1)
               $ git add frotz.c filfre.c
               $ mailx                                    (2)
               $ git reset                                (3)
               $ git pull git:https://info.example.com/ nitfol  (4)

            1. You are happily working on something, and find the
               changes in these files are in good order. You do not
               want to see them when you run git diff, because you
               plan to work on other files and changes with these
               files are distracting.
            2. Somebody asks you to pull, and the changes sound
               worthy of merging.
            3. However, you already dirtied the index (i.e. your
               index does not match the HEAD commit). But you know
               the pull you are going to make does not affect frotz.c
               or filfre.c, so you revert the index changes for these
               two files. Your changes in working tree remain there.
            4. Then you can pull and merge, leaving frotz.c and
               filfre.c changes still in the working tree.

       Undo a commit and redo

               $ git commit ...
               $ git reset --soft HEAD^      (1)
               $ edit                        (2)
               $ git commit -a -c ORIG_HEAD  (3)

            1. This is most often done when you remembered what you
               just committed is incomplete, or you misspelled your
               commit message, or both. Leaves working tree as it was
               before "reset".
            2. Make corrections to working tree files.
            3. "reset" copies the old head to .git/ORIG_HEAD; redo
               the commit by starting with its log message. If you do
               not need to edit the message further, you can give -C
               option instead.

               See also the --amend option to git-commit(1).

       Undo a commit, making it a topic branch

               $ git branch topic/wip          (1)
               $ git reset --hard HEAD~3       (2)
               $ git switch topic/wip          (3)

            1. You have made some commits, but realize they were
               premature to be in the master branch. You want to
               continue polishing them in a topic branch, so create
               topic/wip branch off of the current HEAD.
            2. Rewind the master branch to get rid of those three
               commits.
            3. Switch to topic/wip branch and keep working.

       Undo commits permanently

               $ git commit ...
               $ git reset --hard HEAD~3   (1)

            1. The last three commits (HEAD, HEAD^, and HEAD~2) were
               bad and you do not want to ever see them again. Do not
               do this if you have already given these commits to
               somebody else. (See the "RECOVERING FROM UPSTREAM
               REBASE" section in git-rebase(1) for the implications
               of doing so.)

       Undo a merge or pull

               $ git pull                         (1)
               Auto-merging nitfol
               CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in nitfol
               Automatic merge failed; fix conflicts and then commit the result.
               $ git reset --hard                 (2)
               $ git pull . topic/branch          (3)
               Updating from 41223... to 13134...
               Fast-forward
               $ git reset --hard ORIG_HEAD       (4)

            1. Try to update from the upstream resulted in a lot of
               conflicts; you were not ready to spend a lot of time
               merging right now, so you decide to do that later.
            2. "pull" has not made merge commit, so git reset --hard
               which is a synonym for git reset --hard HEAD clears
               the mess from the index file and the working tree.
            3. Merge a topic branch into the current branch, which
               resulted in a fast-forward.
            4. But you decided that the topic branch is not ready for
               public consumption yet. "pull" or "merge" always
               leaves the original tip of the current branch in
               ORIG_HEAD, so resetting hard to it brings your index
               file and the working tree back to that state, and
               resets the tip of the branch to that commit.

       Undo a merge or pull inside a dirty working tree

               $ git pull                         (1)
               Auto-merging nitfol
               Merge made by recursive.
                nitfol                |   20 +++++----
                ...
               $ git reset --merge ORIG_HEAD      (2)

            1. Even if you may have local modifications in your
               working tree, you can safely say git pull when you
               know that the change in the other branch does not
               overlap with them.
            2. After inspecting the result of the merge, you may find
               that the change in the other branch is unsatisfactory.
               Running git reset --hard ORIG_HEAD will let you go
               back to where you were, but it will discard your local
               changes, which you do not want.  git reset --merge
               keeps your local changes.

       Interrupted workflow
           Suppose you are interrupted by an urgent fix request while
           you are in the middle of a large change. The files in your
           working tree are not in any shape to be committed yet, but
           you need to get to the other branch for a quick bugfix.

               $ git switch feature  ;# you were working in "feature" branch and
               $ work work work      ;# got interrupted
               $ git commit -a -m "snapshot WIP"                 (1)
               $ git switch master
               $ fix fix fix
               $ git commit ;# commit with real log
               $ git switch feature
               $ git reset --soft HEAD^ ;# go back to WIP state  (2)
               $ git reset                                       (3)

            1. This commit will get blown away so a throw-away log
               message is OK.
            2. This removes the WIP commit from the commit history,
               and sets your working tree to the state just before
               you made that snapshot.
            3. At this point the index file still has all the WIP
               changes you committed as snapshot WIP. This updates
               the index to show your WIP files as uncommitted.

               See also git-stash(1).

       Reset a single file in the index
           Suppose you have added a file to your index, but later decide
           you do not want to add it to your commit. You can remove the
           file from the index while keeping your changes with git
           reset.

               $ git reset -- frotz.c                      (1)
               $ git commit -m "Commit files in index"     (2)
               $ git add frotz.c                           (3)

            1. This removes the file from the index while keeping it
               in the working directory.
            2. This commits all other changes in the index.
            3. Adds the file to the index again.

       Keep changes in working tree while discarding some previous
       commits
           Suppose you are working on something and you commit it, and
           then you continue working a bit more, but now you think that
           what you have in your working tree should be in another
           branch that has nothing to do with what you committed
           previously. You can start a new branch and reset it while
           keeping the changes in your working tree.

               $ git tag start
               $ git switch -c branch1
               $ edit
               $ git commit ...                            (1)
               $ edit
               $ git switch -c branch2                     (2)
               $ git reset --keep start                    (3)

            1. This commits your first edits in branch1.
            2. In the ideal world, you could have realized that the
               earlier commit did not belong to the new topic when
               you created and switched to branch2 (i.e.  git switch
               -c branch2 start), but nobody is perfect.
            3. But you can use reset --keep to remove the unwanted
               commit after you switched to branch2.

       Split a commit apart into a sequence of commits
           Suppose that you have created lots of logically separate
           changes and committed them together. Then, later you decide
           that it might be better to have each logical chunk associated
           with its own commit. You can use git reset to rewind history
           without changing the contents of your local files, and then
           successively use git add -p to interactively select which
           hunks to include into each commit, using git commit -c to
           pre-populate the commit message.

               $ git reset -N HEAD^                        (1)
               $ git add -p                                (2)
               $ git diff --cached                         (3)
               $ git commit -c HEAD@{1}                    (4)
               ...                                         (5)
               $ git add ...                               (6)
               $ git diff --cached                         (7)
               $ git commit ...                            (8)

            1. First, reset the history back one commit so that we
               remove the original commit, but leave the working tree
               with all the changes. The -N ensures that any new
               files added with HEAD are still marked so that git add
               -p will find them.
            2. Next, we interactively select diff hunks to add using
               the git add -p facility. This will ask you about each
               diff hunk in sequence and you can use simple commands
               such as "yes, include this", "No don’t include this"
               or even the very powerful "edit" facility.
            3. Once satisfied with the hunks you want to include, you
               should verify what has been prepared for the first
               commit by using git diff --cached. This shows all the
               changes that have been moved into the index and are
               about to be committed.
            4. Next, commit the changes stored in the index. The -c
               option specifies to pre-populate the commit message
               from the original message that you started with in the
               first commit. This is helpful to avoid retyping it.
               The HEAD@{1} is a special notation for the commit that
               HEAD used to be at prior to the original reset commit
               (1 change ago). See git-reflog(1) for more details.
               You may also use any other valid commit reference.
            5. You can repeat steps 2-4 multiple times to break the
               original code into any number of commits.
            6. Now you’ve split out many of the changes into their
               own commits, and might no longer use the patch mode of
               git add, in order to select all remaining uncommitted
               changes.
            7. Once again, check to verify that you’ve included what
               you want to. You may also wish to verify that git diff
               doesn’t show any remaining changes to be committed
               later.
            8. And finally create the final commit.

DISCUSSION         top

       The tables below show what happens when running:

           git reset --option target

       to reset the HEAD to another commit (target) with the different
       reset options depending on the state of the files.

       In these tables, A, B, C and D are some different states of a
       file. For example, the first line of the first table means that
       if a file is in state A in the working tree, in state B in the
       index, in state C in HEAD and in state D in the target, then git
       reset --soft target will leave the file in the working tree in
       state A and in the index in state B. It resets (i.e. moves) the
       HEAD (i.e. the tip of the current branch, if you are on one) to
       target (which has the file in state D).

           working index HEAD target         working index HEAD
           ----------------------------------------------------
            A       B     C    D     --soft   A       B     D
                                     --mixed  A       D     D
                                     --hard   D       D     D
                                     --merge (disallowed)
                                     --keep  (disallowed)

           working index HEAD target         working index HEAD
           ----------------------------------------------------
            A       B     C    C     --soft   A       B     C
                                     --mixed  A       C     C
                                     --hard   C       C     C
                                     --merge (disallowed)
                                     --keep   A       C     C

           working index HEAD target         working index HEAD
           ----------------------------------------------------
            B       B     C    D     --soft   B       B     D
                                     --mixed  B       D     D
                                     --hard   D       D     D
                                     --merge  D       D     D
                                     --keep  (disallowed)

           working index HEAD target         working index HEAD
           ----------------------------------------------------
            B       B     C    C     --soft   B       B     C
                                     --mixed  B       C     C
                                     --hard   C       C     C
                                     --merge  C       C     C
                                     --keep   B       C     C

           working index HEAD target         working index HEAD
           ----------------------------------------------------
            B       C     C    D     --soft   B       C     D
                                     --mixed  B       D     D
                                     --hard   D       D     D
                                     --merge (disallowed)
                                     --keep  (disallowed)

           working index HEAD target         working index HEAD
           ----------------------------------------------------
            B       C     C    C     --soft   B       C     C
                                     --mixed  B       C     C
                                     --hard   C       C     C
                                     --merge  B       C     C
                                     --keep   B       C     C

       reset --merge is meant to be used when resetting out of a
       conflicted merge. Any mergy operation guarantees that the working
       tree file that is involved in the merge does not have a local
       change with respect to the index before it starts, and that it
       writes the result out to the working tree. So if we see some
       difference between the index and the target and also between the
       index and the working tree, then it means that we are not
       resetting out from a state that a mergy operation left after
       failing with a conflict. That is why we disallow --merge option
       in this case.

       reset --keep is meant to be used when removing some of the last
       commits in the current branch while keeping changes in the
       working tree. If there could be conflicts between the changes in
       the commit we want to remove and the changes in the working tree
       we want to keep, the reset is disallowed. That’s why it is
       disallowed if there are both changes between the working tree and
       HEAD, and between HEAD and the target. To be safe, it is also
       disallowed when there are unmerged entries.

       The following tables show what happens when there are unmerged
       entries:

           working index HEAD target         working index HEAD
           ----------------------------------------------------
            X       U     A    B     --soft  (disallowed)
                                     --mixed  X       B     B
                                     --hard   B       B     B
                                     --merge  B       B     B
                                     --keep  (disallowed)

           working index HEAD target         working index HEAD
           ----------------------------------------------------
            X       U     A    A     --soft  (disallowed)
                                     --mixed  X       A     A
                                     --hard   A       A     A
                                     --merge  A       A     A
                                     --keep  (disallowed)

       X means any state and U means an unmerged index.

GIT         top

       Part of the git(1) suite

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the git (Git distributed version control
       system) project.  Information about the project can be found at
       ⟨http:https://git-scm.com/⟩.  If you have a bug report for this manual
       page, see ⟨http:https://git-scm.com/community⟩.  This page was obtained
       from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/git/git.git⟩ on 2023-12-22.  (At that time,
       the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
       repository was 2023-12-20.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       [email protected]

Git 2.43.0.174.g055bb6         2023-12-20                   GIT-RESET(1)

Pages that refer to this page: git(1)git-add(1)git-config(1)git-merge(1)git-restore(1)git-revert(1)git-stash(1)stg(1)stg-repair(1)