Git Workflows

Overview

Git version control patterns, branching strategies, and team collaboration best practices.

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Branching Strategies

Git Flow

main ─────●────────────●─────────────●───────────
           \          /               \
            \   release/1.0          release/1.1
             \    /    \              /
develop ──────●───●──────●────●──────●────────────
               \        /      \    /
            feature/   feature/ feature/
            login      payment  search

# Initialize git flow
git flow init

# Start a new feature
git flow feature start user-authentication
# Work on feature...
git flow feature finish user-authentication

# Start a release
git flow release start 1.0.0
# Bug fixes only...
git flow release finish 1.0.0

# Hotfix for production
git flow hotfix start critical-bug
git flow hotfix finish critical-bug

GitHub Flow (Simplified)

main ─────●──────●──────●──────●──────●───────
           \    /        \    /        \
         feature/       feature/      feature/
         add-auth       fix-bug       new-ui

# 1. Create branch from main
git checkout main
git pull origin main
git checkout -b feature/add-authentication

# 2. Make changes and commit
git add .
git commit -m "feat: add user authentication"

# 3. Push and create PR
git push -u origin feature/add-authentication
gh pr create --title "Add user authentication" --body "..."

# 4. After review, merge via GitHub
gh pr merge --squash

# 5. Delete branch
git checkout main
git pull origin main
git branch -d feature/add-authentication

Trunk-Based Development

main ────●──●──●──●──●──●──●──●──●────
         │     │        │
         └─────┴────────┴─── short-lived branches (< 1 day)

# Small, frequent commits directly to main or via short-lived branches
git checkout main
git pull
git checkout -b fix/typo-in-readme
# Make small change...
git commit -m "fix: typo in README"
git push -u origin fix/typo-in-readme
# PR, review, merge same day

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Common Operations

Commits

# Stage specific changes
git add -p  # Interactive staging

# Commit with message
git commit -m "feat(auth): add JWT token validation"

# Amend last commit (not pushed)
git commit --amend -m "feat(auth): add JWT token validation and refresh"

# Commit with co-author
git commit -m "feat: implement feature

Co-authored-by: Name <email@example.com>"

# Empty commit (trigger CI)
git commit --allow-empty -m "chore: trigger CI build"

Conventional Commits

<type>(<scope>): <description>

[optional body]

[optional footer(s)]

Type	Description
feat	New feature
fix	Bug fix
docs	Documentation only
style	Formatting, no code change
refactor	Code change, no new feature or fix
perf	Performance improvement
test	Adding tests
chore	Build, CI, tooling

# Examples
git commit -m "feat(api): add user registration endpoint"
git commit -m "fix(auth): handle expired token refresh"
git commit -m "docs: update API documentation"
git commit -m "refactor(db): extract connection pool logic"
git commit -m "test(user): add unit tests for validation"

Branching

# Create and switch to branch
git checkout -b feature/new-feature
# or
git switch -c feature/new-feature

# List branches
git branch -a  # All branches
git branch -vv # With tracking info

# Delete branch
git branch -d feature/merged-branch    # Safe delete
git branch -D feature/unmerged-branch  # Force delete

# Rename branch
git branch -m old-name new-name

# Set upstream
git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/main main

Merging

# Merge branch into current
git merge feature/branch

# Merge with no fast-forward (always create merge commit)
git merge --no-ff feature/branch

# Squash merge (combine all commits)
git merge --squash feature/branch
git commit -m "feat: add feature (squashed)"

# Abort merge
git merge --abort

Rebasing

# Rebase current branch onto main
git fetch origin
git rebase origin/main

# Interactive rebase (last 3 commits)
git rebase -i HEAD~3

# In editor, change 'pick' to:
# - squash (s): combine with previous
# - fixup (f): combine, discard message
# - reword (r): change commit message
# - edit (e): stop for amending
# - drop (d): remove commit

# Continue rebase after resolving conflicts
git add .
git rebase --continue

# Abort rebase
git rebase --abort

Stashing

# Stash changes
git stash
git stash push -m "work in progress"

# Stash including untracked files
git stash -u

# List stashes
git stash list

# Apply stash
git stash pop           # Apply and remove
git stash apply         # Apply and keep
git stash apply stash@{2}  # Apply specific

# Show stash contents
git stash show -p stash@{0}

# Drop stash
git stash drop stash@{0}
git stash clear  # Drop all

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Undoing Changes

# Discard changes in working directory
git checkout -- file.txt
git restore file.txt  # Git 2.23+

# Unstage file
git reset HEAD file.txt
git restore --staged file.txt  # Git 2.23+

# Reset to previous commit (keep changes staged)
git reset --soft HEAD~1

# Reset to previous commit (keep changes unstaged)
git reset HEAD~1
git reset --mixed HEAD~1

# Reset to previous commit (discard changes)
git reset --hard HEAD~1

# Revert a commit (create new commit that undoes)
git revert <commit-hash>

# Revert merge commit
git revert -m 1 <merge-commit-hash>

---

Git Hooks

Pre-commit Hook

#!/bin/sh
# .git/hooks/pre-commit

# Run linting
npm run lint
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
  echo "Linting failed. Please fix errors before committing."
  exit 1
fi

# Run type checking
npm run type-check
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
  echo "Type checking failed. Please fix errors before committing."
  exit 1
fi

# Check for console.log
if git diff --cached | grep -E '^\+.*console\.(log|debug|info)' > /dev/null; then
  echo "Warning: Found console.log statements. Remove before committing."
  exit 1
fi

Husky + lint-staged

// package.json
{
  "scripts": {
    "prepare": "husky install"
  },
  "lint-staged": {
    "*.{js,ts,tsx}": [
      "eslint --fix",
      "prettier --write"
    ],
    "*.{json,md,yml}": [
      "prettier --write"
    ]
  }
}

# .husky/pre-commit
#!/bin/sh
. "$(dirname "$0")/_/husky.sh"

npx lint-staged

# .husky/commit-msg
#!/bin/sh
. "$(dirname "$0")/_/husky.sh"

npx --no -- commitlint --edit "$1"

---

Advanced Operations

Cherry-pick

# Apply specific commit to current branch
git cherry-pick <commit-hash>

# Cherry-pick multiple commits
git cherry-pick <commit1> <commit2> <commit3>

# Cherry-pick without committing
git cherry-pick -n <commit-hash>

# Cherry-pick merge commit
git cherry-pick -m 1 <merge-commit-hash>

Bisect (Find Bug Introduction)

# Start bisect
git bisect start

# Mark current as bad
git bisect bad

# Mark known good commit
git bisect good v1.0.0

# Git checks out middle commit, test and mark
git bisect good  # or
git bisect bad

# Repeat until found
# Git reports the first bad commit

# End bisect
git bisect reset

# Automated bisect
git bisect start HEAD v1.0.0
git bisect run npm test

Worktrees

# Create worktree for parallel work
git worktree add ../project-hotfix hotfix/urgent-fix
git worktree add ../project-feature feature/new-feature

# List worktrees
git worktree list

# Remove worktree
git worktree remove ../project-hotfix

Submodules

# Add submodule
git submodule add https://github.com/org/repo.git libs/repo

# Clone with submodules
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/org/project.git

# Update submodules
git submodule update --init --recursive

# Pull submodule updates
git submodule update --remote

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Git Configuration

# User config
git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "you@example.com"

# Default branch
git config --global init.defaultBranch main

# Editor
git config --global core.editor "code --wait"

# Aliases
git config --global alias.co checkout
git config --global alias.br branch
git config --global alias.ci commit
git config --global alias.st status
git config --global alias.lg "log --oneline --graph --all"
git config --global alias.unstage "reset HEAD --"
git config --global alias.last "log -1 HEAD"

# Pull behavior
git config --global pull.rebase true

# Auto-setup remote tracking
git config --global push.autoSetupRemote true

# Credential caching
git config --global credential.helper cache
git config --global credential.helper 'cache --timeout=3600'

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Related Skills

• [[devops-cicd]] - CI/CD with Git
• [[code-quality]] - Code review practices
• [[project-management]] - Agile workflows