Git Push --force

Learn about force pushing and when to use it safely

Force pushing overwrites the remote branch with your local changes. Use with extreme caution as it can overwrite other people's work.

Basic Commands

# Force push (dangerous)
git push --force origin branch-name

# Safer force push
git push --force-with-lease origin branch-name

When to Use Force Push

After History Rewriting

# After amending commits
git commit --amend
git push --force-with-lease origin feature-branch

# After interactive rebase
git rebase -i HEAD~3
git push --force-with-lease origin feature-branch

Fixing Mistakes

# After squashing commits
git rebase -i HEAD~5
git push --force-with-lease origin feature-branch

Safe Force Push

Use --force-with-lease

# Safer option - checks if remote has changed
git push --force-with-lease origin feature-branch

Best Practices

  • Only force push on feature branches you own
  • Never force push to main/master
  • Communicate with team before force pushing shared branches
  • Use --force-with-lease instead of --force

Common Scenarios

1. Amended Commit

git commit --amend -m "Better commit message"
git push --force-with-lease origin feature-branch

2. Cleaned Up History

git rebase -i HEAD~3
git push --force-with-lease origin feature-branch

3. Reset to Previous Commit

git reset --hard HEAD~1
git push --force-with-lease origin feature-branch

Danger Zones

Never Do This

# ❌ Force push to main branch
git push --force origin main

# ❌ Force push without communication
git push --force origin shared-branch

Recovery

If You Force Pushed by Mistake

# Check reflog on remote
git reflog origin/branch-name

# Reset to previous state
git reset --hard origin/branch-name@{1}

Free Resources

official: