stash

Git · Reference cheat sheet

📋 Overview

git stash shelves uncommitted changes so you can switch branches cleanly, then restore them later. Prefer named stashes and explicit pop/apply; include untracked files when needed.

🔧 Core concepts

• Default — stashes tracked modified + staged; working tree matches HEAD.
• Untracked — -u / --include-untracked; -a also ignored.
• List / show — stash list, stash show -p.
• Restore — apply keeps stash; pop applies and drops.
• Branch — stash branch <name> creates a branch from the stash base.

💡 Examples

git stash push -m "wip: login form"
git stash list
git stash show -p stash@{0}

git stash pop
git stash apply stash@{1}
git stash drop stash@{1}
git stash clear   # delete all — irreversible

# Include untracked
git stash push -u -m "wip: new files"

# Stash only some paths
git stash push -m "partial" -- src/a.ts src/b.ts

# Keep index (stash unstaged only)
git stash push --keep-index -m "keep staged"

git stash branch recover-wip stash@{0}

⚠️ Pitfalls

• pop can conflict; the stash entry may remain if apply fails (version-dependent).
• Stashing doesn’t include ignored files unless -a.
• Binary / submodule changes can make stash awkward — verify with show -p.
• Don’t rely on stash as backup — commit to a WIP branch instead for long work.
• clear / drop are hard to undo (reflog may help briefly).

🔗 Related

• status.md
• branch.md
• conflict.md
• reflog.md
• clean.md
• commit.md