What did you break?

Too early, wrong files, bad message. Three ways out depending on what you want to keep.

I added a file I didn't want to (git add)

Nothing is committed yet: take it out of the index, your changes stay.

I made a typo in a commit message

Last commit, older commit, already pushed or not: each case has its fix.

My commit does too many things

Split it into several clean commits before pushing.

I committed on the wrong branch

Classic. Move the commits where they belong.

I committed with the wrong name or email

Your personal email on the work repo, or your work email on your side project.

Too many messy commits to clean up

“wip”, “fix”, “fix again”, “ok now”… Turn them into one clean commit before the PR.

I ran git reset --hard

Commits vanished? The reflog has them. Uncommitted changes? It's complicated.

I lost uncommitted changes

Checkout, stash drop, or a clean -fd. Let's dig.

I lost a stash (drop, clear or pop gone wrong)

A dropped stash is a commit nobody points to anymore: it can be found back for a while.

I deleted a file and committed it

The file is gone from the current version, but Git remembers every version of it.

Branches, merges & rebases

I deleted my branch

git branch -D, or deleted on GitHub. The commits are probably still there.

I'm in “detached HEAD” state

You checked out a commit or a tag, not a branch. Your new commits float in the void.

I'm stuck in a merge conflict

<<<<<<< everywhere and no idea what to keep. Breathe, it's fixable.

I made a bad merge

Wrong branch, botched conflicts, or a merge that broke everything.

Duplicated lines of code after a merge

A function, an import or a whole block appears twice after merging a branch or resolving a conflict.

My rebase went wrong

Commits disappeared, duplicated, or the history is a mess after a rebase.

I rebased onto the wrong branch

Your branch now contains commits from another feature, or is based on develop instead of main.

I need back the changes I reverted

You reverted a merge, fixed the bug, and now merging the branch again brings nothing.

git stash pop gave me a conflict

The stash didn't apply cleanly. Good news: it's still there.

I cherry-picked the wrong commit

In progress: abort. Done: reset if not pushed, revert if pushed.

Push & remote

I pushed directly to main

No PR, no review, straight to main. Undo it without rewriting shared history.

I forgot to pull before pushing

Push rejected, an ugly “Merge branch 'main' of…” commit, or hours of work on an outdated version.

My push is rejected (non-fast-forward)

“Updates were rejected because the remote contains work that you do not have locally.”

I amended a commit that was already pushed

Now git push is rejected and Git says your branch has diverged.

I pushed to the wrong branch

Your commits landed on a colleague's branch, or on a branch with a typo in its name.

I overwrote a colleague's commits

Critical

A git push --force wiped someone else's work from the remote.

GitHub rejects a file over 100 MB

“remote: error: File is 245 MB; this exceeds GitHub's file size limit.”

I pulled and my code disappeared

Almost always recoverable: Git refuses to overwrite uncommitted work, and the reflog remembers the rest.

I deleted a branch on GitHub / GitLab

If anyone still has it locally, push it back. GitHub also offers a “Restore branch” button on the pull request.

I pushed with the wrong GitHub account

Two accounts (personal / work) on one machine: separate them per folder or per SSH key.

The repository was renamed or moved

Point your remote to the new address. Nothing else changes.

I tagged the wrong commit

Move the tag locally; if it was pushed (and maybe released), think twice before moving it.

Pull requests

My pull request has conflicts

“This branch has conflicts that must be resolved”: bring main into your branch and fix them locally.

My pull request is behind main

“This branch is out-of-date with the base branch”: update it, then CI runs again on the real result.

I have to apply review changes to my PR

Commit on the same branch and push: the PR updates itself. Tidy the commits before merge if your team wants it.

The checks of my PR are failing

Read the failing job's logs, reproduce locally, push a fix. Don't merge red.

My PR shows commits that aren't mine

Your branch started from the wrong place (another feature branch, an old main). Move only your commits.

I opened my PR against the wrong branch

Change the base of the PR (Edit button next to the title). No need to close it.

My PR is too big to review

Split it into several small PRs, each one reviewable on its own (stacked PRs).

My fork is behind the original repository

Add the original as upstream, update your main, then rebase your PR branch.

I closed my PR (or deleted its branch) by mistake

A closed PR can be reopened; a deleted branch can be restored from the PR page.

A merged PR broke main

Revert the PR (GitHub has a Revert button), deploy, then fix calmly in a new PR.

Files & repository

I committed a file that should be ignored

node_modules, dist, .DS_Store, logs… Adding it to .gitignore afterwards changes nothing.

Git says every file is modified, but I changed nothing

Line endings (CRLF / LF) or file permissions. Not real changes.

I committed node_modules (or a build folder)

Remove it from Git (not from disk), ignore it, commit. Clean the history only if it's huge.

I ran git init in the wrong folder

Delete the .git folder that was just created (and only that). Your files don't move.

Git doesn't see my file rename (upper/lower case)

Header.tsx → header.tsx works locally but breaks the build on Linux / in CI.

I ran git clean -fd by mistake

New files you had never committed are gone.

My repository is corrupted