git-advanced-workflows – Coding skill for AI agents

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.

When to Use

• 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

Repository and Recovery Boundary

Read repository instructions and branch protection first. A hotfix follows the protected PR/maintainer path when required; urgency does not authorize a direct default-branch commit or push. Preserve dirty and staged work before checkout, rebase, reset or restore. A backup branch protects committed history only, not uncommitted files. Inspect exact targets before destructive operations and obtain authorization for shared-history rewrites. Reflog availability depends on local expiry and garbage collection; it cannot guarantee recovery of every lost file.

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:

# 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.

# 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.

# 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:

# 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.

# 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.

# 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

# 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

# Create fix on an authorized topic branch from the current target
git fetch origin main
git switch -c hotfix/security origin/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

# 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

# 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-hotfix

Workflow 5: Recover from Mistakes

# Accidentally reset to wrong commit
# Historical incident: a hard reset discarded local work; do not reproduce it.

# Use reflog to find lost commits
git reflog
# Output shows:
# abc123 HEAD@{0}: reset: moving to HEAD~5
# def456 HEAD@{1}: commit: my important changes

# Preserve the located commit for inspection first
git branch recovered-commit def456
# Reset only after saving dirty work and authorizing its loss
# git reset --hard def456

# Or create branch from lost commit
git branch recovery def456

Advanced Techniques

Rebase vs Merge Strategy

When to Rebase:

• Cleaning up local commits before pushing
• Keeping feature branch up-to-date with main
• Creating linear history for easier review

When to Merge:

• Integrating completed features into main
• Preserving exact history of collaboration
• Public branches used by others

# Update feature branch with main changes (rebase)
git checkout feature/my-feature
git fetch origin
git rebase origin/main

# Handle conflicts
git status
# Fix conflicts in files
git add <resolved-paths>
git rebase --continue

# Or merge instead
git merge origin/main

Autosquash Workflow

Automatically squash fixup commits during rebase.

# Make initial commit
git commit -m "feat: add user authentication"

# Later, fix something in that commit
# Stage changes
git commit --fixup HEAD  # or specify commit hash

# Make more changes
git commit --fixup abc123

# Rebase with autosquash
git rebase -i --autosquash main

# Git automatically marks fixup commits

Split Commit

Break one commit into multiple logical commits.

# Start interactive rebase
git rebase -i HEAD~3

# Mark commit to split with 'edit'
# Git will stop at that commit

# Reset commit but keep changes
git reset HEAD^

# Stage and commit in logical chunks
git add file1.py
git commit -m "feat: add validation"

git add file2.py
git commit -m "feat: add error handling"

# Continue rebase
git rebase --continue

Partial Cherry-Pick

Cherry-pick only specific files from a commit.

# Show files in commit
git show --name-only abc123

# Checkout specific files from commit
git checkout abc123 -- path/to/file1.py path/to/file2.py

# Stage and commit
git commit -m "cherry-pick: apply specific changes from abc123"

Best Practices

1. Authorized Rewrites Only: Use an explicit expected remote SHA with a lease for an authorized topic-branch rewrite; a lease is not permission to rewrite shared history

2. Rebase Only Local Commits: Don't rebase commits that have been pushed and shared

3. Descriptive Commit Messages: Future you will thank present you

4. Atomic Commits: Each commit should be a single logical change

5. Test Before Force Push: Ensure history rewrite didn't break anything

6. Keep Reflog Aware: Remember reflog is a local recovery aid with configurable expiry; unreachable entries may expire sooner

7. Branch Before Risky Operations: Create backup branch before complex rebases

# Authorized topic rewrite only; verify the expected remote head
git push --force-with-lease origin feature/branch

# Create backup before risky operation
git branch backup-branch
git rebase -i main
# If something goes wrong, inspect the backup in a separate worktree first
git worktree add --detach ../rebase-recovery backup

… (full content is in the download package)