Git Advanced Guide — Rebasing, Cherry-Pick, and Recovering Mistakes

Interactive Rebase

Interactive rebase lets you edit, reorder, squash, or drop commits before pushing. It's the cleanest way to tidy up a feature branch.

# Rebase the last 4 commits interactively
git rebase -i HEAD~4

# In the editor, change pick to:
# s (squash) — combine with previous commit
# r (reword) — edit the commit message
# d (drop) — remove the commit entirely
# e (edit) — pause to amend files

Cherry-Pick

Cherry-pick applies a specific commit from another branch to your current branch — useful for backporting a fix without merging the entire branch.

# Apply a single commit
git cherry-pick abc1234

# Apply a range of commits
git cherry-pick abc1234..def5678

# Cherry-pick without committing (stage the changes only)
git cherry-pick -n abc1234

Finding Bugs with git bisect

git bisect start
git bisect bad                  # current commit has the bug
git bisect good v2.0.0          # this tag was working

# Git checks out a commit halfway between good and bad
# Test it, then mark it:
git bisect good   # or: git bisect bad

# Repeat until bisect identifies the first bad commit
git bisect reset  # return to original HEAD

Recovering with git reflog

The reflog records every HEAD movement — including commits that no longer exist in any branch. This is your safety net when you think you've lost work.

# See all recent HEAD movements
git reflog

# Output:
# abc1234 HEAD@{0}: reset: moving to HEAD~1
# def5678 HEAD@{1}: commit: add feature X

# Restore a lost commit
git checkout def5678         # detached HEAD
git checkout -b recovery     # save as a branch

Stashing Work in Progress

# Stash uncommitted changes
git stash push -m "WIP: feature X"

# List stashes
git stash list

# Apply and drop the latest stash
git stash pop

# Apply a specific stash without dropping it
git stash apply stash@{2}

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between merge and rebase?

Merge preserves history by creating a merge commit. Rebase rewrites history to create a linear commit graph. Use merge for public branches; use rebase to clean up feature branches before merging.

How do I undo the last commit but keep the changes?

git reset --soft HEAD~1 undoes the commit but keeps changes staged. git reset HEAD~1 unstages them. git reset --hard HEAD~1 discards them — use with caution.