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Awesome Git workflow

Oct 26, 2026, 8 min read

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Squash commit

Info

Purpose: Combine N commit into one, and make it for new message

Reference resource

Method 1: rebase with -i flag

git rebase -i <hash-id-you-want-to-squash>

Tip

Change the secondary commit from pick to squash, save and continue for set new message for commit

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Method 2: reset with --soft flag

git reset --soft <hash-id-you-want-to-squash

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git commit -m "New message represent for twice or N commit"

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Delete branch

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Follow the article to understand how we can remove the branch in local and remote, use -d flag at: Git Delete Remote Branch – How to Remove a Remote Branch in Git

For locally

You can use -d with command git branch

# e.g: you want to delete release-v1 branch
git branch -D release-v1 # For delete branch
git branch -d release-v1 # For fully merged branch

For remote

You can use -d with command push

# e.g: you want to delete release-v1 branch, but not locally, but remotely
git push origin -d release-v1

Download Git repository sub-folder

Following Stackoverflow - Download a single folder or directory from a GitHub repository, you will have couple of tools to download subfolder in situation which you want to specific download from remote repository and package them into ZIP format

Change commit contents

Info

When you want make a change inside your commit, git give us permission to handle it with --amend and option attaching

Change author of commit

You can change author for commit with flag --author with commit command

git commit --amend --author="Author Name <email@address.com>" --no-edit

Change message

And you can take it with new message with flag --message or -m with commit amend

git commit --amend --message "Hello_world"

Skip pre-commit rule

To skip commit rule, you can add option --no-verify or -n to bypass pre-commit hook

git commit --no-verify -m "Hello_world, now I bypass pre-commit"

Tagging commit

Info

git command support us release commit inside some repository platform, such as github, gitlab through using tagging with commit.

If you want explore more about this topic, here are some articles for you

Tagging one commit with annotate

When you want tagging in current commit, you can run tag with -a for annotate and -m for message

# NOTE: Use can asign tag with format v0.0.x or ver0.0.x. But notice about platform for compatible tagging
git tag -a <tag> -m "message if tag"

If you want to specific commit, add commit SHA in last command above

git tag -a 0.0.1 -m "message" 6706483

Rename tagging for old tags

You can read the question - How do you rename a Git tag? to understand how can we handle this case

git tag new old           # Create a new local tag named `new` from tag `old`.
git tag -d old            # Delete local tag `old`.
git push origin new :old  # Push `new` to your remote named "origin", and delete tag `old` on origin (by pushing an empty tag name to it).

Force edit tagging

If you want to keep same context of tag, but change it to new commit or new message, you can handle it with -f option with below command

# Change new commit
git tag -a -f 0.0.1 <new-commit>
 
# Change new message
git tag <tag name> <tag name>^{} -f -m "<new message>"

Share tagging (release)

Info

You can handle share tagging with push command through two way

Push with both branch, and tagging

git push -u origin brach-commig --tags 0.0.1

Or you can push only tag to remote

git push -u origin 0.0.1

Note

Reason why we can, because your tag and branch will separate, and push same or not, it’s does matter

View Tagging

You can review your tag, content inside or what commit it attaching with through various commands

# Review your git tag
git tag
 
# View your git tag with specific expression
git tag -l *-rc*
 
# View your git tag with colume display
git tag --column <always/column/row/dense/...>
 
# View detail change in tag
git show tag-name

Set profile for multiple workspace

Note

Time to time when you stay in the project with configuration to enforce you to commit your code with same of prefix of organization, that why we need to learn set multiple git profile for each project

You can double-check couple of documentations before starting

If you are set git profile to global with both of these command

git config --global user.name "YOUR_NAME"
git config --global user.gmail "YOUR_GMAIL"

you can find your global git profile at HOME directory at ~/.gitconfig. So you should be edit this file by replacing with these configurations

~/.gitconfig
# This will define git should be used personal profile at Personal PATH
[includeIf "gitdir:~/Personal/**"]
  path = ~/.gitconfig-personal
 
# In another case, git should be used work profile at Work PATH
[includeIf "gitdir:~/Work/**"]
  path = ~/.gitconfig-work

If you clarify what need to set for both of profile, you should create two profile in home directory one for personal and one for work

~/.gitconfig-personal
[user]
name = Xeus Nguyen
email = personal_email@gmail.com
~/.gitconfig-work
name = Xeus Nguyen
email = work_email@gmail.com

Now with each of directory, it will use git profile corresponding, you can double check it with command

git config --list

Add a changed file to older (not last) commit in Git

In some situation, you have file changing and want to add to older commit, not last one, therefore, you can use rebase for solving this task. Explore more at StackOverFlow - How to add a changed file to an older (not last) commit in Git

First of all, you need to decide which commit you want to commit the new file change, and you rebase your current git-tree to previous (n-1) compare with your commit, e.g:

f4c79e7 (HEAD -> main, origin/main, origin/HEAD) Merge pull request #61 from Xeus-Territory/chore/correct-error-typing-in-setup-script
de64171 chore: correct error typing in setup script
4d2bb79 Merge pull request #60 from Xeus-Territory/chore/add-comment-for-setup-scripts
1827d5b chore: add comments for setup scripts
e110bdc Merge pull request #58 from Xeus-Territory/feat/fix-error-provision-k3s-and-provide-rke2

Your are in f4c79e7 and you need commit to 1827d5b, it means you need to rebase to commit e110bdc, so following the the concept above you can handle add new file, e.g: README.md

# stash your changing, if this file currently modify not new one, if the one you can skip this step
git stash
 
# rebase to n-1 commit
git rebase -i e110bdc

Info

Here what you need to modify in your terminal, with changing your state of commit from pick to edit, or what ever you want

edit 1827d5b chore: add comments for setup scripts
pick de64171 chore: correct error typing in setup script
 
# Commands:
# p, pick <commit> = use commit
# r, reword <commit> = use commit, but edit the commit message
# e, edit <commit> = use commit, but stop for amending
# s, squash <commit> = use commit, but meld into previous commit
# f, fixup [-C | -c] <commit> = like "squash" but keep only the previous
#                    commit's log message, unless -C is used, in which case
#                    keep only this commit's message; -c is same as -C but
#                    opens the editor
# x, exec <command> = run command (the rest of the line) using shell
# b, break = stop here (continue rebase later with 'git rebase --continue')
# d, drop <commit> = remove commit
# l, label <label> = label current HEAD with a name
# t, reset <label> = reset HEAD to a label
# m, merge [-C <commit> | -c <commit>] <label> [# <oneline>]
#         create a merge commit using the original merge commit's
#         message (or the oneline, if no original merge commit was
#         specified); use -c <commit> to reword the commit message
# u, update-ref <ref> = track a placeholder for the <ref> to be updated
#                       to this position in the new commits. The <ref> is
#                       updated at the end of the rebase
#
# These lines can be re-ordered; they are executed from top to bottom.

Note

This kind is the same way when you want to squash commit above. After changing, saving it and you will currently on the commit you want to edit

# pop your fine you want to add to this commit
git stash pop
 
# add into this commit
git add README.md
 
# commit ammend with no-edit the message
git commit --amend --no-edit
 
# now rebase continue to back to the lastest commit
git rebase --continue
 
# push force if you already write the commit tree into remote repository
# git push -u origin <branch> --force

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