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Advanced Git Commands Every Developer Should Know

Once you’ve mastered git add, commit, push, and pull, these advanced commands will save you hours.

Interactive Rebase

Clean up commit history before pushing:

git rebase -i HEAD~5

Opens an editor where you can:

  • pick — keep the commit
  • reword — change the message
  • squash — merge into the previous commit
  • fixup — merge and discard the message
  • drop — remove the commit

Use case: Combine “fix typo” and “oops forgot file” commits into one clean commit before opening a PR.

Git Reflog

Git’s safety net. Records every movement of HEAD:

git reflog

Use case: You accidentally reset to the wrong commit. Find the lost commit in reflog and git reset --hard <sha> to restore it.

Git Bisect

Binary search to find the commit that introduced a bug:

git bisect start
git bisect bad                # current commit is broken
git bisect good v2.0.0        # this tag was working
# Git checks out a middle commit. Test it.
git bisect good               # if this commit works
# or
git bisect bad                # if this commit is broken
# Repeat until Git identifies the first bad commit
git bisect reset

Use case: A test started failing sometime in the last 50 commits. Bisect finds the exact commit in ~6 steps.

Git Cherry-Pick

Apply specific commits from another branch:

git cherry-pick <commit-sha>
git cherry-pick <sha1> <sha2> <sha3>  # multiple commits
git cherry-pick main..feature          # range of commits

Use case: A bug fix was committed to the develop branch but needs to be in main immediately without merging the whole branch.

Git Stash Advanced 

git stash push -m "WIP: refactoring auth"  # named stash
git stash list                               # view all stashes
git stash show -p stash@{1}                  # view changes
git stash branch new-feature stash@{1}       # create branch from stash

Use case: You’re working on a feature but need to fix an urgent bug. Stash your work, fix the bug, then git stash pop to resume.

Git Submodules

Include one repo inside another:

git submodule add https://github.com/example/lib.git lib/
git clone --recurse-submodules <repo-url>
git submodule update --remote  # update all submodules

Use case: You have a shared library used by multiple projects. Keep it as a submodule to version it independently.

Git Worktree

Work on multiple branches simultaneously:

git worktree add ../project-release release-branch
git worktree add -b new-feature ../project-feature
git worktree list
git worktree remove ../project-release

Use case: You need to make a hotfix on main without stashing or committing your current feature branch work. Create a worktree for main.

Git Log Formatting 

# One-line graph with branches
git log --oneline --graph --all --decorate

# Show changes in each commit
git log -p

# Search commits by message
git log --grep="fix bug"

# Search commits by author
git log --author="Alice"

# Custom format
git log --pretty=format:"%h %s by %an, %ar"

Related: Learn how to undo commits and Git branching strategies.