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Here's a preview from my zine, Oh Shit, Git! If you want to see more comics like this, sign up for my saturday comics newsletter or browse more comics!

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In git you always have some commit checked out. HEAD is a pointer to that commit and you’ll see HEAD used a lot in this zine. Like a branch, HEAD is just a text file. Run cat .git/HEAD or git status to see the current HEAD.

Examples of how to use HEAD:

  • show the diff for the current commit:
    git show HEAD

  • UNDO UNDO UNDO UNDO: reset branch to 16 commits ago
    git reset --hard HEAD~16
    (HEAD~16 means 16 commits ago)

  • show what’s changed since 6 commits ago:
    git diff HEAD~6

  • squash a bunch of commits together
    git rebase -i HEAD~8
    (this opens an editor, use “fixup” to squash commits together)