cherry-pick

Git · Reference cheat sheet

📋 Overview

git cherry-pick applies the patch of one or more existing commits onto the current branch as new commits. Use to backport fixes; avoid heavy cherry-picking as a substitute for proper merges/rebases.

🔧 Core concepts

• New SHAs — picked commits get new hashes (same diff, new parents).
• Ranges — A^..B or --no-walk for explicit lists.
• Mainline — -m 1 when picking merge commits.
• Continue — conflict → fix → --continue / --abort / --skip.
• Sign-off — -x records “cherry picked from” in the message.

💡 Examples

git checkout release/1.2
git cherry-pick abcdef1
git cherry-pick -x abcdef1   # note source SHA in message

# Multiple
git cherry-pick abcdef1 1234567
git cherry-pick A^..B

# No auto-commit
git cherry-pick --no-commit abcdef1

# During conflicts
git status
# fix files
git add -u
git cherry-pick --continue
# or
git cherry-pick --abort

⚠️ Pitfalls

• Duplicate commits later when merging the original branch (duplicate changes / conflicts).
• Empty cherry-pick if changes already present — --skip or abort.
• Merge commits need -m; picking merges is often the wrong tool.
• Don’t cherry-pick unpublished WIP that will be rewritten (amended/rebased).
• Binary conflicts and renames can make picks painful — prefer merge for large sets.

🔗 Related

• rebase.md
• merge.md
• conflict.md
• revert.md
• log.md
• commit.md