Git Advanced Workflows

Master advanced Git techniques to maintain clean history, collaborate effectively, and recover from any situation with confidence.

Do not use this skill when

•The task is unrelated to git advanced workflows
•You need a different domain or tool outside this scope

Instructions

•Clarify goals, constraints, and required inputs.
•Apply relevant best practices and validate outcomes.
•Provide actionable steps and verification.
•If detailed examples are required, open resources/implementation-playbook.md.

Use this skill when

•Cleaning up commit history before merging
•Applying specific commits across branches
•Finding commits that introduced bugs
•Working on multiple features simultaneously
•Recovering from Git mistakes or lost commits
•Managing complex branch workflows
•Preparing clean PRs for review
•Synchronizing diverged branches

Core Concepts

1. Interactive Rebase

Interactive rebase is the Swiss Army knife of Git history editing.

Common Operations:

•pick: Keep commit as-is
•reword: Change commit message
•edit: Amend commit content
•squash: Combine with previous commit
•fixup: Like squash but discard message
•drop: Remove commit entirely

Basic Usage:

bash

# Rebase last 5 commits
git rebase -i HEAD~5

# Rebase all commits on current branch
git rebase -i $(git merge-base HEAD main)

# Rebase onto specific commit
git rebase -i abc123

2. Cherry-Picking

Apply specific commits from one branch to another without merging entire branches.

bash

# Cherry-pick single commit
git cherry-pick abc123

# Cherry-pick range of commits (exclusive start)
git cherry-pick abc123..def456

# Cherry-pick without committing (stage changes only)
git cherry-pick -n abc123

# Cherry-pick and edit commit message
git cherry-pick -e abc123

3. Git Bisect

Binary search through commit history to find the commit that introduced a bug.

bash

# Start bisect
git bisect start

# Mark current commit as bad
git bisect bad

# Mark known good commit
git bisect good v1.0.0

# Git will checkout middle commit - test it
# Then mark as good or bad
git bisect good  # or: git bisect bad

# Continue until bug found
# When done
git bisect reset

Automated Bisect:

bash

# Use script to test automatically
git bisect start HEAD v1.0.0
git bisect run ./test.sh

# test.sh should exit 0 for good, 1-127 (except 125) for bad

4. Worktrees

Work on multiple branches simultaneously without stashing or switching.

bash

# List existing worktrees
git worktree list

# Add new worktree for feature branch
git worktree add ../project-feature feature/new-feature

# Add worktree and create new branch
git worktree add -b bugfix/urgent ../project-hotfix main

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

# Prune stale worktrees
git worktree prune

5. Reflog

Your safety net - tracks all ref movements, even deleted commits.

bash

# View reflog
git reflog

# View reflog for specific branch
git reflog show feature/branch

# Restore deleted commit
git reflog
# Find commit hash
git checkout abc123
git branch recovered-branch

# Restore deleted branch
git reflog
git branch deleted-branch abc123

Practical Workflows

Workflow 1: Clean Up Feature Branch Before PR

bash

# Start with feature branch
git checkout feature/user-auth

# Interactive rebase to clean history
git rebase -i main

# Example rebase operations:
# - Squash "fix typo" commits
# - Reword commit messages for clarity
# - Reorder commits logically
# - Drop unnecessary commits

# Force push cleaned branch (safe if no one else is using it)
git push --force-with-lease origin feature/user-auth

Workflow 2: Apply Hotfix to Multiple Releases

bash

# Create fix on main
git checkout main
git commit -m "fix: critical security patch"

# Apply to release branches
git checkout release/2.0
git cherry-pick abc123

git checkout release/1.9
git cherry-pick abc123

# Handle conflicts if they arise
git cherry-pick --continue
# or
git cherry-pick --abort

Workflow 3: Find Bug Introduction

bash

# Start bisect
git bisect start
git bisect bad HEAD
git bisect good v2.1.0

# Git checks out middle commit - run tests
npm test

# If tests fail
git bisect bad

# If tests pass
git bisect good

# Git will automatically checkout next commit to test
# Repeat until bug found

# Automated version
git bisect start HEAD v2.1.0
git bisect run npm test

Workflow 4: Multi-Branch Development

bash

# Main project directory
cd ~/projects/myapp

# Create worktree for urgent bugfix
git worktree add ../myapp-hotfix hotfix/critical-bug

# Work on hotfix in separate directory
cd ../myapp-hotfix
# Make changes, commit
git commit -m "fix: resolve critical bug"
git push origin hotfix/critical-bug

# Return to main work without interruption
cd ~/projects/myapp
git fetch origin
git cherry-pick hotfix/critical-bug

# Clean up when done
git worktree remove ../myapp-hot