Commits and Branching Naming Convention

A good commit is not a summary of the change but why the change was needed. Think of it as a future note to yourself.

Types

feat: A new feature

fix: A bug fix

chore: Changes which doesn’t change source code or tests e.g. changes to the build process, auxiliary tools, libraries

Commit Examples Start with a tag followed by a : and a short description.

feat: new feature

fix: bug in scope

feat: breaking change / feat: rework API

chore: update dependencies

Branch Examples Start with a type followed by a / and a short description with - instead of spaces.

feat/login-google

feat/login+signup

Pulling

Let’s say John and you (or more ppl) are working on the same branch.

1. [SITUATION 1] You have some changes and John pushes. Now your local repo is one commit behind. i.e ↓ 1
1. Try git pull to catch up your current branch. If successful, you’re done!
2. If get Fatal: Not possible to fast-forward, aborting move on to SITUATION 2.

2. [SITUATION 2] Let’s say you already have multiple commits and John pushes. Now your local repo looks like ↓ 1 ↑ 3
1. Use git pull --rebase. Think of this as putting your changes aside, pulling all the pushed changes from Github and then popping you changes on top of that. This may cause merge conflicts if John’s changed files that you also changed.
2. If you run into Fatal: Not possible to fast-forward, aborting again, you may have pending changes that you haven’t committed. Try git stash to stash your changes, git pull --rebase to pull John’s commit, git stash pop to add your changes back.

Undo Commits

We will refer to mistake commit(s) as the commits that you want to undo

1. [SITUATION 1] You haven’t yet pushed your mistake commit(s) to the remote repo
1. Undo last commit: git reset HEAD~
2. Undo last n commits: git reset HEAD~n i.e git reset HEAD~4

2. [SITUATION 2] You pushed your mistake commits, your mistake commits are on top of all the other commits, and you want to wipe your mistake commits from the history.
1. git reset HEAD~ OR git reset HEAD~n and then git push --force
2. Ensure you are on the correct branch and your local branch and remote branch are caught up.

Catching Up Your Branch

You’re writing a feature or fix branch and now main branch has changes that aren’t in your branch. Continue to next step if current step fails or is too difficult. (WIP)

1. [Step 1] Attempt to rebase changes from main into your feature branch
bash

copy

git checkout feature      # gets you "on branch feature"
git fetch origin        # gets you up to date with origin
git pull --rebase main # puts your changes on top of main's changes

2. [Step 2] Just squash merge changes into your branch
bash

copy

git checkout feature      # gets you "on branch feature"
git fetch origin        # gets you up to date with origin
git merge origin/main