Useful Git patterns for real life

Much of this originates as live workshop materials; the unlinked workflows are planned but not yet converted to prose here.

Git patterns that come up frequently in real work:

• Commit early and often. Push less often. The Repeated Amend.
• Help, my push was rejected!
• Integrating remote and local work. Probably so you can push again.
• Burn it all down.
• Time travel:
  • “I just need to see the past”. Browse and search on GitHub.
  • “I need to visit the past”. Create a checkout a branch.
  • “I want to return to the past”. git revert, git reset
  • “I had a great cookie last October”. git cherry pick, git checkout REF -- path

Play well with others:

• Fork and clone.
• Get upstream changes for a fork.
• Disposable fork.
• Make your repo rewarding to browse on GitHub.
• Explore and extend a pull request