Built-in shorthand

Beyond aliases, Git has a host of built-in shorthand notations that save typing once you know them. Most appear in the man pages but are easy to overlook.

HEAD relatives

HEAD          # current commit
HEAD~         # one before
HEAD~1        # also one before
HEAD~5        # five before
HEAD^         # first parent of HEAD
HEAD^^        # parent of parent
HEAD^2        # second parent (merge)
HEAD^{tree}   # the tree object of HEAD

~N walks up by N first-parent steps. ^N selects the Nth parent of HEAD. They are different.

Reflog references

HEAD@{1}                # HEAD before its last move
HEAD@{yesterday}        # HEAD as of yesterday
HEAD@{2.hours.ago}      # HEAD as of two hours ago
main@{push}             # remote-tracking equivalent

Branch shorthand

git checkout -          # previous branch (like cd -)
git switch -            # same, modern syntax
git merge @{u}           # merge from upstream
git rebase @{u}          # rebase onto upstream
git push HEAD            # push current branch to its name remotely

SHA shorthand

You can use any unique prefix of a commit SHA:

git show abc          # works if "abc" is unique
git checkout abc1234

Configure the default abbreviation length:

git config --global core.abbrev 12

Range shorthand

main..feature       # commits in feature not main
main...feature      # symmetric difference
feature^@           # all parents of feature
feature^!            # feature itself, excluding parents

Pathspec shorthand

git add :/                    # repository root, regardless of cwd
git checkout -- :/some-path
git diff -- '*.js'             # all .js files
git diff -- ':!vendor/'         # exclude vendor/

The -- separator

git checkout main          # branch
git checkout -- main       # path
git diff master file       # ambiguous; could be branch or path
git diff master -- file    # unambiguously a path

Use -- to disambiguate when a name could be either.

Useful one-character flags

git commit -a            # add tracked files and commit
git commit -am "msg"     # add tracked, commit with message
git pull -r              # rebase instead of merge
git push -u              # set upstream
git log -p               # show diffs
git log -S 'string'      # pickaxe search
git log -G 'regex'       # regex pickaxe

Subcommand abbreviation

Git auto-completes unambiguous subcommands:

git st          # status (with autocomplete or alias)
git co main      # checkout (alias)
git rev          # revert (no other "rev*" commands)

The CLI does not abbreviate by default - rely on shell completion or aliases.

Useful environment variables

GIT_EDITOR=vim git commit
GIT_AUTHOR_DATE='2024-01-01T12:00:00' git commit -m "backdated"
GIT_PAGER=cat git log         # disable pager
GIT_TRACE=1 git fetch          # debug output

Configuration shorthand

git config --global -e         # open editor on global config
git config -l                   # list everything
git config --get-regexp '^alias\\.'  # all aliases

The compounding effect

Each piece of shorthand saves only seconds, but you use them dozens of times a day. Spend an afternoon internalising them; for the rest of your career, you will move through Git noticeably faster than colleagues who have not.