revert

Git · Reference cheat sheet

📋 Overview

git revert creates new commits that undo the changes of prior commits. Safe for shared branches because history is not rewritten. Use for undoing merges and published mistakes.

🔧 Core concepts

• Inverse patch — applies the opposite of the selected commit(s).
• Non-destructive — original commits remain in history.
• Ranges — can revert multiple commits (order matters).
• Merges — -m 1 specifies mainline parent for merge commits.
• No-commit — --no-commit applies inverses and leaves staging for one commit.

💡 Examples

# Undo a single commit on main
git revert abcdef1
git revert HEAD

# Revert without auto-commit
git revert --no-commit abcdef1
git commit -m "revert: undo broken feature flag"

# Sequence (oldest..newest often clearer with -n then one commit)
git revert --no-commit bad1^..bad3
git commit -m "revert: roll back bad1..bad3"

# Revert a merge commit (keep first parent line)
git revert -m 1 mergecommitsha

# Abort conflicted revert
git revert --abort

⚠️ Pitfalls

• Reverting a merge without -m fails — pick the parent to keep.
• Re-reverting later can be confusing if the original feature is re-applied.
• Conflicts still happen when later commits touch the same lines.
• Don’t confuse with reset — revert is for published history.
• Empty revert (changes already undone) may need --skip or abort.

🔗 Related

• reset.md
• conflict.md
• log.md
• commit.md
• merge.md
• cherry_pick.md