Master Advanced Git Workflows

Covers advanced Git techniques for clean history, collaboration, and recovery. Interactive rebase (git rebase -i HEAD~5 or onto a merge-base/specific commit) supports pick, reword, edit, squash, fixup, and drop operations. Cherry-picking (git cherry-pick abc123, a range with abc123..def456, -n to stage without committing, -e to edit the message) applies specific commits across branches without merging whole branches. Git bisect does a binary search for the commit that introduced a bug (git bisect start, bad/good <ref>, testing each checked-out commit until found, or automated via git bisect run ./test.sh where the script must exit 0 for good and 1-127 except 125 for bad). Worktrees (git worktree add ../project-feature feature/new-feature, list, remove, prune) let multiple branches be worked on simultaneously without stashing. Reflog tracks all ref movements including deleted commits, recovering a lost commit or branch by finding its hash and running git branch recovered-branch <hash>.

Five worked workflows are given: cleaning up a feature branch before a PR (interactive rebase against main, then git push --force-with-lease); applying a hotfix to multiple release branches via repeated cherry-pick, handling conflicts with --continue/--abort; finding a bug's introduction via manual or git bisect run npm test; multi-branch development using a worktree for an urgent hotfix while the main directory stays on other work; and recovering from an accidental git reset --hard by finding the lost commit in reflog and resetting onto it or branching from it. Rebase-versus-merge guidance: rebase to clean up local commits or keep a feature branch current with main; merge to integrate completed features or preserve exact collaboration history on public branches. Further techniques: autosquash (git commit --fixup <hash> then git rebase -i --autosquash main), splitting one commit into several via edit plus git reset HEAD^ and staged partial commits, and partial cherry-pick of specific files via git checkout abc123 -- path/to/file.

# Abort operations in progress
git rebase --abort
git merge --abort
git cherry-pick --abort
git bisect reset

# Restore file to version from specific commit
git restore --source=abc123 path/to/file

# Undo last commit but keep changes
git reset --soft HEAD^

# Undo last commit and discard changes
git reset --hard HEAD^

# Recover deleted branch (within 90 days)
git reflog
git branch recovered-branch abc123

Best practices: always use --force-with-lease over --force, rebase only local unshared commits, write descriptive atomic commits, test before force-pushing, remember reflog is a 90-day safety net, and branch before risky operations. Common pitfalls: rebasing public branches, force-pushing without lease, losing work mid-rebase, orphaned worktrees, skipping a backup branch, and bisecting on a dirty working directory.

Use it for cleaning up commit history before merging, applying commits across branches, finding a bug-introducing commit, working on multiple features simultaneously, recovering from Git mistakes, managing complex branch workflows, preparing clean PRs, or synchronizing diverged branches.

Do NOT use it for tasks unrelated to advanced Git workflows or outside this domain.

Developers who need to rewrite or clean commit history safely, apply fixes across multiple branches, bisect for regressions, parallelize work with worktrees, or recover lost commits and branches via reflog within its 90-day window.