til/git/resetting-a-reset.md

Resetting A Reset

Sometimes we run commands like git reset --hard HEAD~ when we shouldn't have. We wish we could undo what we've done, but the commit we've reset is gone forever. Or is it?

When bad things happen, git-reflog can often lend a hand. Using git-reflog, we can find our way back to were we've been; to better times.

$ git reflog
00f77eb HEAD@{0}: reset: moving to HEAD~
9b2fb39 HEAD@{1}: commit: Add this set of important changes
...

We can see that HEAD@{1} references a time and place before we destroyed our last commit. Let's fix things by resetting to that.

$ git reset HEAD@{1}

Our lost commit is found.

Unfortunately, we cannot undo all the bad in the world. Any changes to tracked files will be irreparably lost.

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