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Michael Z
Michael Z

Posted on • Edited on • Originally published at michaelzanggl.com

Git aliases for increased productivity

#git #productivity

It's been almost a year since I posted my first article on git aliases. Since then I've applied a number of additional aliases in my workflow. Be sure to check out my first article here to how I use "git update", "git nah", and "git amend".

Without further ado, here they are:

git arrange

This command lets you arrange all commits you made in a feature branch. Perfect for cleaning up commits before creating a PR.

Register alias 

git config --global alias.arrange "rebase -i develop"
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git recent

If you often find yourself switching branches, this is a lifesaver. It will list all branches sorted by recent use.

Register alias 

git config --global alias.recent "branch --sort=-committerdate" # most recent branches
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git stash-unstaged

Ever wanted to stash your code, but keep everything you staged (with git add .)

Register alias 

git config --global alias.stash-unstaged "stash save --keep-index -u"
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git undo-commit

This will allow you to remove the latest commit and move all the changes back into your working directory. With this, I often prefer committing instead of stashing code that I need for later, because it makes it so much simpler than searching through a list of stashes.

Register alias 

git config --global alias.undo-commit "reset HEAD~ --soft"
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What aliases did you apply in your workflow? Let me know in the comments ✌️

If this article helped you, I have a lot more tips on simplifying writing software here.

Top comments (3)

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claudiofreitas profile image
Claudio Freitas •

This one is saving me a lot of headache lately.

git config --global alias.set-upstream "!git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/`git symbolic-ref --short HEAD`"
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Then everytime you receive the message

There is no tracking information for the current branch.
Please specify which branch you want to merge with.
See git-pull(1) for details.

    git pull <remote> <branch>

If you wish to set tracking information for this branch you can do so with:

    git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/<branch> branch-name
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just run

git set-upstream
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It is util when your local branch names are the same as in your remote.

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michi profile image
Michael Z • • Edited

I don't recall running into this after having set the push.default option to current stackoverflow.com/a/948397

Only thing I have to do is add the -u flag to the push command once to set the upstream. (git push -u)

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moopet profile image
Ben Sinclair •

These are good!

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