GITEVERYDAY(7)

💅 `giteveryday(7)` — your everyday Git bestie 💅

okay so this is the giteveryday(7) page from the Git Manual, and it is literally the useful minimum set of commands for Everyday Git. Think of it as the group chat cheat sheet: not every single Git command ever, just the ones you actually need so you can stop panicking and start slaying. 💖

🌸 NAME 🌸

giteveryday — A useful minimum set of commands for Everyday Git

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

Everyday Git With 20 Commands Or So

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

So Git users can broadly be grouped into four categories for the purposes of describing here a small set of useful commands for everyday Git. No cap, this is the vibe check:

Individual Developer (Standalone) commands are essential for anybody who makes a commit, even for somebody who works alone.
If you work with other people, you will need commands listed in the Individual Developer (Participant) section as well.
People who play the Integrator role need to learn some more commands in addition to the above.
Repository Administration commands are for system administrators who are responsible for the care and feeding of Git repositories.

👑 INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPER (STANDALONE) 👑

A standalone individual developer does not exchange patches with other people, and works alone in a single repository, using the following commands. It’s giving solo main character energy, and honestly? Iconic. 🦋

git-init(1) — to create a new repository.
git-log(1) — to see what happened.
git-switch(1) and git-branch(1) — to switch branches.
git-add(1) — to manage the index file.
git-diff(1) and git-status(1) — to see what you are in the middle of doing.
git-commit(1) — to advance the current branch.
git-restore(1) — to undo changes.
git-merge(1) — to merge between local branches.
git-rebase(1) — to maintain topic branches.
git-tag(1) — to mark a known point.

🎀 Examples 🎀

Use a tarball as a starting point for a new repository. Yes bestie, tarball-to-repo glow-up. ✨

$ tar zxf frotz.tar.gz
$ cd frotz
$ git init
$ git add . (1)
$ git commit -m "import of frotz source tree."
$ git tag v2.43 (2)

add everything under the current directory.
make a lightweight, unannotated tag.

Create a topic branch and develop. This is the “I have a little side quest” workflow, and it eats. 💅

$ git switch -c alsa-audio (1)
$ edit/compile/test
$ git restore curses/ux_audio_oss.c (2)
$ git add curses/ux_audio_alsa.c (3)
$ edit/compile/test
$ git diff HEAD (4)
$ git commit -a -s (5)
$ edit/compile/test
$ git diff HEAD^ (6)
$ git commit -a --amend (7)
$ git switch master (8)
$ git merge alsa-audio (9)
$ git log --since='3 days ago' (10)
$ git log v2.43.. curses/ (11)

create a new topic branch.
revert your botched changes in curses/ux_audio_oss.c.
you need to tell Git if you added a new file; removal and modification will be caught if you do git commit -a later.
to see what changes you are committing.
commit everything, as you have tested, with your sign-off.
look at all your changes including the previous commit.
amend the previous commit, adding all your new changes, using your original message.
switch to the master branch.
merge a topic branch into your master branch.
review commit logs; other forms to limit output can be combined and include -10 (to show up to 10 commits), --until=2005-12-10, etc.
view only the changes that touch what’s in curses/ directory, since v2.43 tag.

🦋 INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPER (PARTICIPANT) 🦋

A developer working as a participant in a group project needs to learn how to communicate with others, and uses these commands in addition to the ones needed by a standalone developer. Group project bestie era: activated. 🫶

git-clone(1) — from the upstream to prime your local repository.
git-pull(1) and git-fetch(1) — from "origin" to keep up-to-date with the upstream.
git-push(1) — to shared repository, if you adopt CVS style shared repository workflow.
git-format-patch(1) — to prepare e-mail submission, if you adopt Linux kernel-style public forum workflow.
git-send-email(1) — to send your e-mail submission without corruption by your MUA.
git-request-pull(1) — to create a summary of changes for your upstream to pull.

🌈 Examples 🌈

Clone the upstream and work on it. Feed changes to upstream. This is the “I’m contributing, your honor” pipeline. 😭✨

$ git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/.../torvalds/linux-2.6 my2.6
$ cd my2.6
$ git switch -c mine master (1)
$ edit/compile/test; git commit -a -s (2)
$ git format-patch master (3)
$ git send-email --to="person <email@example.com>" 00*.patch (4)
$ git switch master (5)
$ git pull (6)
$ git log -p ORIG_HEAD.. arch/i386 include/asm-i386 (7)
$ git ls-remote --heads http://git.kernel.org/.../jgarzik/libata-dev.git (8)
$ git pull git://git.kernel.org/pub/.../jgarzik/libata-dev.git ALL (9)
$ git reset --hard ORIG_HEAD (10)
$ git gc (11)

checkout a new branch mine from master.
repeat as needed.
extract patches from your branch, relative to master,
and email them.
return to master, ready to see what’s new
git pull fetches from origin by default and merges into the current branch.
immediately after pulling, look at the changes done upstream since last time we checked, only in the area we are interested in.
check the branch names in an external repository (if not known).
fetch from a specific branch ALL from a specific repository and merge it.
revert the pull.
garbage collect leftover objects from reverted pull.

Push into another repository. satellite-to-mothership communication arc, we love a long-distance repo relationship. 💀💖

satellite$ git clone mothership:frotz frotz (1)
satellite$ cd frotz
satellite$ git config --get-regexp '^(remote|branch)\.' (2)
remote.origin.url mothership:frotz
remote.origin.fetch refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
branch.master.remote origin
branch.master.merge refs/heads/master
satellite$ git config remote.origin.push \
           +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/satellite/* (3)
satellite$ edit/compile/test/commit
satellite$ git push origin (4)

mothership$ cd frotz
mothership$ git switch master
mothership$ git merge satellite/master (5)

mothership machine has a frotz repository under your home directory; clone from it to start a repository on the satellite machine.
clone sets these configuration variables by default. It arranges git pull to fetch and store the branches of mothership machine to local remotes/origin/* remote-tracking branches.
arrange git push to push all local branches to their corresponding branch of the mothership machine.
push will stash all our work away on remotes/satellite/* remote-tracking branches on the mothership machine. You could use this as a back-up method. Likewise, you can pretend that mothership "fetched" from you (useful when access is one sided).
on mothership machine, merge the work done on the satellite machine into the master branch.

Branch off of a specific tag. Private branch, but make it vintage. 🎀

$ git switch -c private2.6.14 v2.6.14 (1)
$ edit/compile/test; git commit -a
$ git checkout master
$ git cherry-pick v2.6.14..private2.6.14 (2)

create a private branch based on a well known (but somewhat behind) tag.
forward port all changes in private2.6.14 branch to master branch without a formal "merging". Or longhand:

git format-patch -k -m --stdout v2.6.14..private2.6.14 |
git am -3 -k

An alternate participant submission mechanism is using the git request-pull or pull-request mechanisms (e.g. as used on GitHub (www.github.com) to notify your upstream of your contribution.

💅 INTEGRATOR 💅

okay so the integrator is the fairly central person in a group project. They receive changes made by others, review and integrate them, and publish the result for other people to use — using these commands in addition to the ones participants need.

This section can also be used by those who respond to git request-pull or pull-request on GitHub (www.github.com) to integrate the work of others into their history. A sub-area lieutenant for a repository will act both as a participant and as an integrator. double duty, iconic.

git-am(1) — to apply patches e-mailed in from your contributors. 💌
git-pull(1) — to merge from your trusted lieutenants. 🫡
git-format-patch(1) — to prepare and send a suggested alternative to contributors. 📨
git-revert(1) — to undo botched commits. 💀
git-push(1) — to publish the bleeding edge. 🔥

✨ Examples ✨

A typical integrator’s Git day is giving main character energy:

$ git status (1)
$ git branch --no-merged master (2)
$ mailx (3)
& s 2 3 4 5 ./+to-apply
& s 7 8 ./+hold-linus
& q
$ git switch -c topic/one master
$ git am -3 -i -s ./+to-apply (4)
$ compile/test
$ git switch -c hold/linus && git am -3 -i -s ./+hold-linus (5)
$ git switch topic/one && git rebase master (6)
$ git switch -C seen next (7)
$ git merge topic/one topic/two && git merge hold/linus (8)
$ git switch maint
$ git cherry-pick master~4 (9)
$ compile/test
$ git tag -s -m "GIT 0.99.9x" v0.99.9x (10)
$ git fetch ko && for branch in master maint next seen (11)
    do
        git show-branch ko/$branch $branch (12)
    done
$ git push --follow-tags ko (13)

peek at what you were in the middle of doing, if anything.
clock which branches haven’t been merged into master yet. Same vibe check for any other integration branches e.g. maint, next and seen.
read mails, save the ones that are applicable, and save the ones that are not quite ready (other mail readers are available).
apply them, interactively, with your sign-offs.
create a topic branch as needed and apply, again with sign-offs.
rebase an internal topic branch that has not been merged to the master or exposed as a part of a stable branch.
restart seen every time from the next.
and bundle topic branches that are still cooking.
backport a critical fix.
create a signed tag.
make sure master was not accidentally rewound beyond that already pushed out.
In the output from git show-branch, master should have everything ko/master has, and next should have everything ko/next has, etc.
push out the bleeding edge, together with new tags that point into the pushed history.

In this example, the ko shorthand points at the Git maintainer’s repository at kernel.org, and looks like this:

(in .git/config)
[remote "ko"]
        url = kernel.org:/pub/scm/git/git.git
        fetch = refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/ko/*
        push = refs/heads/master
        push = refs/heads/next
        push = +refs/heads/seen
        push = refs/heads/maint

👑 REPOSITORY ADMINISTRATION 👑

A repository administrator uses the following tools to set up and maintain access to the repository by developers.

git-daemon(1) — to allow anonymous download from repository. 🫶
git-shell(1) — can be used as a restricted login shell for shared central repository users. 🔐
git-http-backend(1) — provides a server side implementation of Git-over-HTTP ("Smart http") allowing both fetch and push services. 🌐
gitweb(1) — provides a web front-end to Git repositories, which can be set-up using the git-instaweb(1) script. 🎀

update hook howto[1] has a good example of managing a shared central repository.

In addition there are a number of other widely deployed hosting, browsing and reviewing solutions such as:

gitolite, gerrit code review, cgit and others. 💅

🌸 Examples 🌸

We assume the following in /etc/services:

$ grep 9418 /etc/services
git             9418/tcp                # Git Version Control System

Run git-daemon to serve /pub/scm from inetd.

$ grep git /etc/inetd.conf
git     stream  tcp     nowait  nobody \
  /usr/bin/git-daemon git-daemon --inetd --export-all /pub/scm

⚠️ The actual configuration line should be on one line.

Run git-daemon to serve /pub/scm from xinetd.

$ cat /etc/xinetd.d/git-daemon
# default: off
# description: The Git server offers access to Git repositories
service git
{
        disable = no
        type            = UNLISTED
        port            = 9418
        socket_type     = stream
        wait            = no
        user            = nobody
        server          = /usr/bin/git-daemon
        server_args     = --inetd --export-all --base-path=/pub/scm
        log_on_failure  += USERID
}

🫶 Check your xinetd(8) documentation and setup, this is from a Fedora system. Others might be different.

Give push/pull only access to developers using git-over-ssh. e.g. those using: $ git push/pull ssh://host.xz/pub/scm/project

$ grep git /etc/passwd (1)
alice:x:1000:1000::/home/alice:/usr/bin/git-shell
bob:x:1001:1001::/home/bob:/usr/bin/git-shell
cindy:x:1002:1002::/home/cindy:/usr/bin/git-shell
david:x:1003:1003::/home/david:/usr/bin/git-shell
$ grep git /etc/shells (2)
/usr/bin/git-shell

log-in shell is set to /usr/bin/git-shell, which does not allow anything but git push and git pull. The users require ssh access to the machine.
in many distributions /etc/shells needs to list what is used as the login shell.

CVS-style shared repository.

$ grep git /etc/group (1)
git:x:9418:alice,bob,cindy,david
$ cd /home/devo.git
$ ls -l (2)
  lrwxrwxrwx   1 david git    17 Dec  4 22:40 HEAD -> refs/heads/master
  drwxrwsr-x   2 david git  4096 Dec  4 22:40 branches
  -rw-rw-r--   1 david git    84 Dec  4 22:40 config
  -rw-rw-r--   1 david git    58 Dec  4 22:40 description
  drwxrwsr-x   2 david git  4096 Dec  4 22:40 hooks
  -rw-rw-r--   1 david git 37504 Dec  4 22:40 index
  drwxrwsr-x   2 david git  4096 Dec  4 22:40 info
  drwxrwsr-x   4 david git  4096 Dec  4 22:40 objects
  drwxrwsr-x   4 david git  4096 Nov  7 14:58 refs
  drwxrwsr-x   2 david git  4096 Dec  4 22:40 remotes
$ ls -l hooks/update (3)
  -r-xr-xr-x   1 david git  3536 Dec  4 22:40 update
$ cat info/allowed-users (4)
refs/heads/master       alice\|cindy
refs/heads/doc-update   bob
refs/tags/v[0-9]*       david

place the developers into the same git group.
and make the shared repository writable by the group.
use update-hook example by Carl from Documentation/howto/ for branch policy control.
alice and cindy can push into master, only bob can push into doc-update. david is the release manager and is the only person who can create and push version tags.

🧚 GIT 🧚

Part of the git(1) suite

💜 NOTES 💜

update hook howto — file:///usr/share/doc/git-doc/howto/update-hook-example.html

later bestie! this page is from Git 2.56.0, dated 2026-09-27 — mwah 💖

📦 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 2026-11-06: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms