Master Git Workflows: The Complete Guide with Scenarios
Every Git change you make lives in one of four places: your Working Directory, Staging Area, Local Repository, or Remote Repository. In this video, we map out the 8 foundational commands (add, commit, push, fetch, merge, pull, and diff) that move code between these zones.
But what happens when the happy path breaks? We dive deep into 8 real-world nightmare scenarios—from rejected pushes and detached HEADs to accidentally committing secrets and erasing code with reset --hard—and fix them step-by-step using advanced commands like rebase, reflog, filter-repo, and cherry-pick.
Timestamps
00:00 - The 4 Git Lanes & The Happy Path
00:32 - git add & git commit Explained
01:15 - How git push & git fetch Work
02:00 - git merge vs. git pull
02:45 - Visualizing git diff & git diff HEAD
03:30 - Beyond the Happy Path: When Git Breaks
04:12 - Scenario 1: Push Rejected (Non-Fast-Forward)
05:30 - Scenario 2: Committed to the Wrong Branch
06:45 - Scenario 3: Detached HEAD & Orphan Commits
08:00 - Scenario 4: Recovering from git reset --hard (Reflog Rescue)
09:30 - Scenario 5: How to Sync a Stale Fork with Upstream
11:00 - Scenario 6: Fixing Broken CI Pipelines & Lockfiles
12:15 - Scenario 7: EMERGENCY - You Pushed a Secret/API Key
13:45 - Scenario 8: Cherry-Picking Critical Bug Fixes
15:00 - Closing Challenge: Reset vs. Revert?
16:15 - Outro & Subscribe!
💬 Leave a comment: Did you get the closing challenge right? Do you prefer git reset or git revert when working on your own private branches? Let me know below!
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