Post: Recover from accidental git push --force (#687)

content/posts/2021-12-16-recover-accidental-git-push-force.md

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+---
+date: 2021-12-16
+title: "Recover from a git push --force"
+template: post
+thumbnail: "../thumbnails/git.png"
+slug: recover-accidental-git-push-force
+categories:
+  - Git
+
+tags:
+  - git
+---
+
+I was collaborating with a teammate on the same feature branch and wanted to `git rebase` update the branch with `develop`.
+
+```bash
+// Trying to rebase update our branch with develop
+
+$ git checkout develop
+$ git pull
+
+$ git checkout feature/our-collab-branch
+$ git rebase develop
+$ git push --force
+```
+
+I then realized that there were changes I hadn't pulled from `origin feature/our-collab-branch`, and I had accidentally overwritten my teammate's commits with the `git push --force`.
+
+Yipes!
+
+## Recovering from an accidental git push --force
+
+Fortunately git doesn't discard commits even with a `git push --force`.
+Since we still had the original branch in our remote, none of the commits are actually lost.
+
+We can use `git reflog show` to show the reference logs (hence, "reflog"), which is a record of the recent actions when the tips of the branches were updated.
+
+After we get the SHA-1 checksum of the commit before our `git push --force`, we can recreate the branch and push the branch back to the remote.
+
+```bash
+// Show the reference logs
+$ git reflog show remotes/origin/feature/our-collab-branch
+
+971cf78 (HEAD -> feature/our-collab-branch, origin/feature/our-collab-branch) remotes/origin/feature/our-collab-branch@{0}: update by push
+7138c46 remotes/origin/feature/our-collab-branch@{1}: update by push
+
+// Recreate the feature/our-collab-branch branch
+$ git checkout 7138c46
+$ git branch -D feature/our-collab-branch
+
+$ checkout -b feature/our-collab-branch
+$ git push origin HEAD --force
+```
+
+Whew! Now we've restored the branch to the state before my `git push --force`