Every developer eventually breaks something in a repository. Good news: Git rarely loses data permanently – reflog records every HEAD change. Bisect cuts hours of regression hunting to minutes. Reset has three modes and mixing them up causes pain. Revert is the safe alternative on public branches. This post is the rescue map.
Git hooks are scripts that run automatically on Git operations. A pre-commit hook run before every commit eliminates a class of errors before they enter history. Commit-msg enforces message conventions. Pre-push protects the remote branch from broken code. I show how to configure this in a Magento 2 project with DDEV.
The choice of Git workflow has a bigger impact on team productivity than most technical decisions. Git Flow, GitHub Flow, trunk-based development are complete models for work, code review, and deployment. I show when to use each and what separates a good pull request from a bad one.
Working with remotes is everyday work in every team – but many people only use git pull and have a vague idea of what actually happens. Tracking refs, the difference between fetch and pull, when to use --force-with-lease instead of --force, and how remote branches actually work is knowledge that saves you from irreversible mistakes.
The question “merge or rebase?” is one of the most common in Git-using teams. Both strategies achieve the same result – integrating changes – but produce completely different history. There is no single right answer, there is context. I show when to use each, how conflicts work, and why fast-forward is not the same as “no merge commit”.
Commit history is project documentation – other developers read it, git bisect searches it for bugs, and git blame explains decisions. Good commit messages, the ability to tidy history before a merge, and knowing cherry-pick and bisect are tools that separate someone who “uses Git” from someone who “manages” it.