GIT-RESET(1)
🎀 git-reset(1) — Git Manual 🎀
💖 NAME 💖
git-reset — set HEAD or the index to a known state. That’s the whole vibe. ✨
✨ SYNOPSIS ✨
git reset [--soft | --mixed [-N] | --hard | --merge | --keep] [-q] [<commit>]
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>...]🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋
Okay so git reset does either of the following, bestie:
- Move the
HEADpointer.git reset [<mode>] <commit>changes which commitHEADpoints to. This makes it possible to undo various Git operations, for examplecommit,merge,rebase, andpull. - Update the staged version. When you specify files or directories or pass
--patch,git resetupdates the staged version of the specified files.
🎯 Commit-moving mode
git reset [<mode>] [<commit>]
Set the current branch head (HEAD) to point at <commit>. Depending on <mode>, also update the working directory and/or index to match the contents of <commit>. <commit> defaults to HEAD. Before the operation, ORIG_HEAD is set to the tip of the current branch.
The <mode> must be one of the following (default --mixed):
--mixed— Leave your working directory unchanged. Update the index to match the newHEAD, so nothing will be staged. If-Nis specified, mark removed paths as intent-to-add (seegit-add(1)).--soft— Leave your working tree files and the index unchanged. For example, if you have no staged changes, you can usegit reset --soft HEAD~5; git committo combine the last 5 commits into 1 commit. This works even with changes in the working tree, which are left untouched, but such usage can lead to confusion.--hard— Overwrite all files and directories with the version from<commit>, and may overwrite untracked files. Tracked files not in<commit>are removed so that the working tree matches<commit>. Update the index to match the newHEAD, so nothing will be staged.--merge— Reset the index and update the files in the working tree that are different between<commit>andHEAD, but keep those which are different between the index and working tree (i.e. which have changes which have not been added). Mainly exists to reset unmerged index entries, like those left behind bygit am -3orgit switch -min certain situations. If a file that is different between<commit>and the index has unstaged changes, reset is aborted.--keep— Resets index entries and updates files in the working tree that are different between<commit>andHEAD. If a file that is different between<commit>andHEADhas local changes, reset is aborted.--recurse-submodules,--no-recurse-submodules— When the working tree is updated, using--recurse-submoduleswill also recursively reset the working tree of all active submodules according to the commit recorded in the superproject, also setting the submodules’HEADto be detached at that commit.
🧺 Pathspec mode
git reset [-q] [<tree-ish>] [--] <pathspec>... and git reset [-q] [--pathspec-from-file=<file> [--pathspec-file-nul]] [<tree-ish>]
For all specified files or directories, set the staged version to the version from the given commit or tree (which defaults to HEAD).
This means that git reset <pathspec> is the opposite of git add <pathspec>: it unstages all changes to the specified file(s) or directories. This is equivalent to git restore --staged <pathspec>....
In this mode, git reset updates only the index (without updating the HEAD or working tree files). If you want to update the files as well as the index entries, use git-restore(1).
🪄 Patch mode
git reset (--patch | -p) [<tree-ish>] [--] [<pathspec>...]
Interactively select changes from the difference between the index and the specified commit or tree (which defaults to HEAD). The index is modified using the chosen changes.
This means that git reset -p is the opposite of git add -p, i.e. you can use it to selectively unstage changes. See the "Interactive Mode" section of git-add(1) to learn how to use the --patch option.
See "Reset, restore and revert" in git(1) for the differences between the three commands.
💅 OPTIONS 💅
Full menu, no skips, iykyk. 🫶
-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 variablecore.quotePath(seegit-config(1)). See also--pathspec-file-nuland 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).-U<n>,--unified=<n>— Generate diffs with<n>lines of context. The number of context lines defaults todiff.contextor 3 if the configuration variable is unset. (-Uwithout<n>is silently accepted as a synonym for-pdue to a historical accident).--inter-hunk-context=<n>— Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified<number>of lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other. Defaults todiff.interHunkContextor 0 if the config option is unset.--— Do not interpret any more arguments as options.<pathspec>...— Limits the paths affected by the operation. For more details, see the pathspec entry ingitglossary(7).
✨ EXAMPLES ✨
Okay bestie, this is the fun part — real scenarios, real commands, real "wait why did I do that" moments. Let's go 💅
🎀 Undo add
$ edit (1)
$ git add frotz.c filfre.c
$ mailx (2)
$ git reset (3)
$ git pull git://info.example.com/ nitfol (4)- You're vibing, working on stuff, and you notice the changes in these files are actually good. Chef's kiss. But you don't want to see them when you run
git diff— like, you're about to go work on other files and these ones are just distracting you, lowkey. 🙈 - Then someone asks you to pull, and honestly the changes sound worth merging.
- But plot twist — you already dirtied the index (translation: your index does not match the
HEADcommit). Good news: you know the pull you're about to do doesn't touchfrotz.corfilfre.c, so you revert the index changes for just those two files. Your working tree changes stay right where they are, chillin'. ✨ - Then you pull and merge, and
frotz.c+filfre.cchanges are still sitting in the working tree. Iconic. 🫶
🦋 Undo a commit and redo
$ git commit ...
$ git reset --soft HEAD^ (1)
$ edit (2)
$ git commit -a -c ORIG_HEAD (3)- This is the move for when you remembered your commit was incomplete, or you typo'd the commit message, or both because of course. 😭 It leaves the working tree exactly as it was before the "reset".
- Go fix your working tree files, bestie.
- "reset" copies the old head to
.git/ORIG_HEAD; then you redo the commit starting from its log message. And if you don't need to edit the message any further, you can hand it-Cinstead — same energy, fewer keystrokes. 💅
Also peep the--amendoption ongit-commit(1)— she's that girl.
🌸 Undo a commit, making it a topic branch
$ git branch topic/wip (1)
$ git reset --hard HEAD~3 (2)
$ git switch topic/wip (3)- So you made some commits and then realized they were kinda premature to be sitting in the master branch. Happens to the best of us. You want to keep polishing them somewhere else, so you create the
topic/wipbranch off the currentHEAD. ✨ - Rewind the master branch to yeet those three commits out of there.
- Switch to
topic/wipand keep doing your thing. 💖
💀 Undo commits permanently
$ git commit ...
$ git reset --hard HEAD~3 (1)- The last three commits (
HEAD,HEAD^, andHEAD~2) were bad and you never want to see them again. Fair. But do not do this if you have already given these commits to somebody else — that's not a vibe, that's a whole situation. 😭 (See the "RECOVERING FROM UPSTREAM REBASE" section ingit-rebase(1)for what that implies.)
🧚 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)- You tried to update from upstream and got a lot of conflicts. You were absolutely not ready to spend your whole afternoon merging, so you decide to deal with it later. Valid. 🙈
- "pull" has not made a merge commit, so
git reset --hard— which is a synonym forgit reset --hard HEAD— clears the whole mess out of the index file and the working tree. Clean slate. ✨ - Then you merge a topic branch into the current branch, and it results in a fast-forward.
- But nah, you decided the topic branch is not ready for public consumption yet. Good news: "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 working tree back to that state, and resets the tip of the branch to that commit. Slay. 💅
🔥 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)- Even if you have local modifications in your working tree, you can safely say
git pullwhen you know the change in the other branch doesn't overlap with them. No cap. ✅ - After inspecting the merge result you might find the change in the other branch is, uh, unsatisfactory. Running
git reset --hard ORIG_HEADtakes you back, but it discards your local changes, which you do not want.git reset --mergekeeps your local changes. That's the one. 🫶
💜 Interrupted workflow
So picture this: you're in the middle of a big change, and someone needs an urgent fix right now. The files in your working tree are in no shape to be committed yet, but you gotta get to the other branch for a quick bugfix. Main character energy, honestly.
$ 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)- This commit is gonna get blown away anyway, so a throw-away log message is totally fine. 🗑️
- This removes the WIP commit from the commit history, and sets your working tree to the state it was in just before you made that snapshot.
- At this point the index file still has all the WIP changes you committed as
snapshot WIP. This updates the index so your WIP files show up as uncommitted. ✨
Also see git-stash(1) — she's a whole icon for this kind of situation.
🍓 Reset a single file in the index
Say you added a file to your index, but then decided you don't want it in your commit after all. You can remove it from the index while keeping your changes using git reset. bestie that's the whole trick 💖
$ git reset -- frotz.c (1)
$ git commit -m "Commit files in index" (2)
$ git add frotz.c (3)- This removes the file from the index while keeping it in the working directory. Both worlds. 🌈
- This commits all the other changes in the index.
- Adds the file to the index again. Boom, we're so back.
⭐ Keep changes in working tree while discarding some previous commits
Suppose you're working on something, you commit it, then you keep working a bit more — and now you think what's in your working tree should live in a totally different branch that has nothing to do with what you committed earlier. Been there. You can start a new branch and reset it while keeping your working tree changes. 🧚
$ git tag start
$ git switch -c branch1
$ edit
$ git commit ... (1)
$ edit
$ git switch -c branch2 (2)
$ git reset --keep start (3)- This commits your first edits in
branch1. - In the ideal world you would've realized the earlier commit didn't belong to the new topic when you created and switched to
branch2(likegit switch -c branch2 start), but nobody is perfect. 😭 - Lucky you —
reset --keepremoves the unwanted commit after you've switched tobranch2. Fixed. ✨
👑 Split a commit apart into a sequence of commits
Okay so you made a ton of logically separate changes and committed them all together. Classic. Later you decide each logical chunk should have its own commit. You can use git reset to rewind history without changing the contents of your local files, then successively use git add -p to interactively pick which hunks go into each commit, and git commit -c to pre-populate the commit message. This is the good stuff. 💅
$ 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)- First, reset the history back one commit so we remove the original commit but leave the working tree with all the changes. The
-Nmakes sure any new files added withHEADare still marked, sogit add -pwill find them. 🔍 - Next, interactively select diff hunks to add using the
git add -pfacility. It'll ask you about each diff hunk in sequence, and you can use simple commands like "yes, include this", "No don't include this", or even the very powerful "edit" facility. Yes queen, curate your commits. ✨ - Once you're happy with the hunks, verify what's been prepped for the first commit with
git diff --cached. It shows all the changes moved into the index and about to be committed. - Next, commit what's stored in the index. The
-coption says: pre-populate the commit message from the original message you started with in the first commit — super helpful so you're not retyping it.HEAD@{1}is a special notation for the commit thatHEADused to be at prior to the original reset commit (1 change ago). Seegit-reflog(1)for more details. You may also use any other valid commit reference. 🎀 - You can repeat steps 2–4 as many times as you want to break the original code into any number of commits.
- Now that you've split out a bunch of changes into their own commits, you might not need patch mode of
git addanymore — just select all remaining uncommitted changes. - Once again, check that you've included what you actually wanted. You may also want to verify that
git diffdoesn't show any remaining changes to be committed later. 👀 - And finally, create the final commit. Periodt. 💅✨
💅 DISCUSSION 💅
Okay bestie, this is the part where we map out the chaos. The tables below show what happens when you run:
git reset --option targetto reset HEAD to another commit (target) with the different reset options, depending on the state of the files.
Tiny legend before the main character tables: A, B, C, and D are some different states of a file. Example time: 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 Cgit 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. periodt.
git 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. iykyk 👀
👑 GIT 👑
Part of the git(1) suite.
💖 That’s the whole manual page, bestie — Git 2.56.0, dated 2026-09-27. GIT-RESET(1) out! 💅✨
📦 where this page comes from
- arch rolling: git 2.56.0-1 · GPL-2.0-only
- 💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms