Git Commands Cheat Sheet

Aliases

• Create global alias (where name is name of your alias and command is the command you want to replace)
  $ git config --global alias.NAME "COMMAND"

  Branches

• Check local branches
  $ git branch

• Create new branch
  $ git branch new-branch

• Switch to new branch
  $ git checkout new-branch

• Create and Switch to new branch in one command
  $ git checkout -b new-branch

• To merge changes made in new-branch into main first change to main
  $ git checkout main

• Then merge
  $ git merge new-branch

• Once everything is checked and running fine, delete the branch
  $ git branch -d new-branch

Contributing to a Project

• Fork the repository you want to contribute to

• Clone the fork to your local machine
  $ git clone URL_of_fork

  i.e. $ git clone https://github.com/YOURNAME/first-contributions.git

• cd into new directory

• Add url of the original project as the upstream repository
  $ git remote add upstream URL_of_project

  i.e. $ git remote add upstream https://github.com/firstcontributions/first-contributions.git

  $ git remote -v shows your remote repositories

• Pull from upstream master to sync your local
  $ git pull upstream master

• Create new local branch (best not to work on master/main)
  $ git checkout -b NEWBRANCH

  $ git branch will show your local branches

• Make your changes

• Add your changes
  $ git add -A

• Commit changes, be descriptive. Use current tense, not past. (Add, not added)
  $ git commit -m 'describe what you did'

• Push to your fork
  $ git push origin NEWBRANCH

• Go to fork on Github, refresh, should be pull request button. Click and fill it out.