Git branch --force

Today I learned about the --force parameter of git branch which will take an existing branch and point it to a different commit. This is another handy alternative to git reset --hard for some common scenarios.

For example, if I forgot to create a new feature branch and accidentally made some commits onto main, I can run the following:

git checkout -b new-branch # create the new branch and switch to it
git branch --force main origin/main # fix main back to what it should be

vs what I would do before:

git branch new-branch
git reset --hard origin/main
git checkout new-branch

which is one less command, but even better the contents of my working directory don’t have to change at all!