WEBVTT

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<i>git reset</i> is the command that allows you to shape history in your repository.

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Whether you're undoing some changes
or crafting your commits differently,

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this is the command for you.

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(bossa music)

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Welcome to the episode of Git and GitHub Foundations on the <i>reset</i> command.

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This command has a lot of power,
and a lot of modes.

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Yeah, there's going to be three modes
we're going to be working with here.

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There's going to be <i>soft</i>;
<i>mixed</i>, or the default; and <i>hard</i>.

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(music)

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these adjectives are pretty descriptive,

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starting with the one that's the default, <i>mixed</i>.

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It alters both the history and the working directory.

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So mixed, both things.

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And soft is going to take one or multiple commits

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and put all of their changes back into the staging area

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to allow you to continue to craft
a new commit out of that.

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Hard, on the other hand, is a destructive operation

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that's meant to erase things that you no longer wish to keep.

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So with all three of these in our stable,

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let's look at <i>mixed</i> first.

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<i>Mixed</i> is the recommendation that most often gets shown to new Git users

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because it shows up in the <i>status</i> command.

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When you have changes in the staging area
and you say <i>git status</i>,

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we see a Git reset head.

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That allows us to take those changes
out of the staging area

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and put them back into the working directory

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with the <i>mixed</i> option.

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<i>Soft</i> is the way that I take some changes

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that might have gotten too granular in nature.

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One, two, three, four, five commits

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that I then realize all belong
in one transaction,

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and to bring them all together
by a <i>git reset --soft HEAD~5</i>

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the most recent five commits.

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So with that command of using <i>soft</i>

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you can take all five of those commits

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and kind of squash them down
into the staging area as one commit.

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Pretty useful for reshaping history,

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but reshaping history goes to the far end of the spectrum

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to throw away commits that just don't add value.

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You don't want to send them, transmit them, or share them with others.

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That's where <i>hard</i> comes into play.

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If you completely want to throw away some of your work,

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maybe you're trying out some change that just didn't work out,

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you can use the <i>git reset --hard</i> to throw those commits away completely.

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People might ask, then why would you make a commit?

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But Git provides you a really nice safety net

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through the <i>reflog</i> command that we'll look at in a future episode

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that motivates you to make checkpoints with commits,

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and knowing that you have <i>hard</i> at your disposal,

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you can clean that history up anytime you like.

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(music)