Git utilities

This repo contains some Git utility scripts. The highlights are git open, git pull-request, git push-branch, and git undo, which you’ll never understand how you did without.

git-utils used to be pure Bash scripts, but they are now available as a Ruby gem:

gem install git-utils

See below for more details on the commands defined by git-utils. To learn more about how to use Git itself, see the tutorial book and online course Learn Enough Git to Be Dangerous.

Installation

gem install git-utils

Commands

• git amend: alias for git commit --amend
• git bump: makes a commit with the message "Bump version number"
• git cleanup: deletes every branch already merged into current branch (apart from master, main, staging, development, and any branches listed in ~/.git-cleanup-preserved). Pass the -r option to delete remote merged branches.
• git files-changed: alias for git log --name-only, showing only the commit message and which files changed (no diffs).
• git merge-into-branch [branch]: merges current branch into given branch (defaults to repo's default branch)
• git minor: makes a commit with the message "Make minor changes"
• git open: opens the remote page for the repo (macOS & Linux)
• git polish: makes a commit with the message "Polish"
• git pull-request: pushes the branch and opens the remote page for issuing a new a pull request (macOS-only)
• git push-branch: pushes the current branch up to origin
• git delete-remote-branch <branch>: deletes the remote branch if it is safe to do so
• git switch <pattern>: switches to the first branch matching the given pattern
• git sync [branch]: syncs the given branch with the remote branch (defaults to repo's default branch)
• git sync-fork: syncs the default branch of a fork with the original upstream default (assumes upstream configuration as in “Configuring a remote for a fork”)
• git typo: makes a commit with the message "Fix typo"
• git typos: makes a commit with the message "Fix typos"
• git undo: undoes the last commit
• git graph: displays full repository history in graphical format; alias for git log --graph --oneline --decorate --all --full-history --author-date-order --no-notes

Aliases

Here are some suggested aliases:

git config --global alias.mib merge-into-branch
git config --global alias.pr  pull-request
git config --global alias.pb  push-branch

Further details

Some of these commands deserve further explanation.

git merge-into-branch

git merge-into-branch [target] merges the current branch into the target branch (defaults to repo's default branch). On a branch called add-markdown-support in a repo with default branch main, git merge-into-branch is equivalent to the following:

$ git checkout main
$ git merge --no-ff --log add-markdown-support

Note that this effectively changes the default merge behavior from fast-forward to no-fast-forward, which makes it possible to use git log to see which of the commit objects together have implemented a feature on a particular branch. As noted in A successful Git branching model:

The --no-ff flag causes the merge to always create a new commit object, even if the merge could be performed with a fast-forward. This avoids losing information about the historical existence of a feature branch and groups together all commits that together added the feature… Yes, it will create a few more (empty) commit objects, but the gain is much bigger than that cost.

In addition, the --log option puts the commit messages from the individual commits in the merge message, which is especially useful for viewing the full diff represented by the commit.

These options can be overriden (and thus restored to their defaults) by passing the options -ff or --no-log. git merge-into-branch accepts any options valid for git merge.

git push-branch

git push-branch creates a remote branch at origin with the name of the current branch:

$ git push-branch
* [new branch]      add-markdown-support -> add-markdown-support

git push-branch accepts any options valid for git push.

git sync

git sync [branch] syncs the given local branch with the remote branch (defaults to repo's default branch). On a branch called add-markdown-support in a repo with default branch master, git sync is equivalent to the following:

$ git checkout master
$ git pull
$ git checkout add-markdown-support

The main purpose of git sync is to prepare the current branch for merging with the default branch:

$ git sync
$ git merge master    # or `main`, etc.

(This is essentially equivalent to

$ git fetch
$ git merge origin/master

but I don’t like having master and origin/master be different since that means you have to remember to run git pull on master some time down the line.)