git-reset - Reset current HEAD to the specified state
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>]
GIT-RESET(1) Git Manual GIT-RESET(1)
NAME
git-reset - Reset current HEAD to the specified state
SYNOPSIS
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
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>. 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
-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
Undo add
$ edit (1)
$ git add frotz.c filfre.c
$ mailx (2)
$ git reset (3)
$ git pull git://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
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
Part of the git(1) suite
Git 2.36.0 04/17/2022 GIT-RESET(1)