Comprehensive Guide to Git Workflows, Commands, and Best Practices

The author, a senior architect, introduces the importance of mastering Git for efficient development and presents several widely used workflows.

Common Git Workflows

Git Flow : main, stable, develop, feature, hotfix branches.

GitHub Flow : create branch → commit → pull‑request → review → merge.

GitLab Flow : production, environment, release branches.

Daily Best Practices

Prefer command‑line over GUI for speed and control.

Write clear commit messages: separate subject (≤50 chars) and body (≤72 chars per line).

Use .gitignore templates to exclude unnecessary files.

Develop on feature branches, not directly on main.

Use release branches and tags for versioning.

Essential Commands

# stage changes
$ git add <file/dir>

# commit with message
$ git commit -m "some info"

# push to remote
$ git push origin master

# discard local changes
$ git checkout -- <file>

# reset to a previous commit
$ git reset --hard <commit>

Merge vs Rebase

Merge preserves the complete history, useful for auditability, while rebase creates a linear history, ideal for clean main branches. The rule of thumb: rebase only unpublished local commits; never rebase commits that have been pushed.

Updating Repository History

Use interactive rebase ( git rebase -i HEAD~5 ) to squash, reword, edit, or drop commits. Example of a rebase todo list:

pick c2aeb6e 3rd commit
reword 25a3122 4th commit
squash bd5d32f 6th commit
drop 581e96d 7th commit

Stash for Interruptions

Save uncommitted work with git stash , list with git stash list , apply with git stash apply , or pop with git stash pop . Stash can include untracked files using -u .

Efficient Cloning

Shallow clone the latest snapshot: git clone --depth=1 <repo_url> . To clone a specific tag without full history:

$ git init project
$ git remote add origin <repo_url>
$ git -c protocol.version=2 fetch origin 15.0.1 --depth=1
$ git checkout FETCH_HEAD

Skip large LFS files during clone with GIT_LFS_SKIP_SMUDGE=1 git clone <repo_url> .

Hooks and Automation

Git provides client‑side and server‑side hooks in .git/hooks . Enable a hook by removing the .sample suffix. Example of a pre‑push hook to block WIP commits:

# pre-push sample (remove .sample to activate)
#!/bin/sh
if git log -1 --pretty=%B | grep -i "WIP"; then
  echo "Push blocked: commit contains WIP"
  exit 1
fi

Use the pre-commit framework to run linters (e.g., flake8 ) before commits or pushes.

Advanced History Rewrites

For global changes (e.g., fixing author email), use git filter-branch with a custom commit filter:

# Change author email globally
$ git filter-branch --commit-filter '
  if [ "$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL" == "[email protected]" ]; then
    GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="escape";
    GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL="[email protected]";
    git commit-tree "$@";
  else
    git commit-tree "$@";
  fi' HEAD

After rewriting, push with git push -f or use reflog to recover lost commits.