Awesome Lists with GitHub stars

GitHub Cheat Sheet

A collection of cool hidden and not so hidden features of Git and GitHub. This cheat sheet was inspired by Zach Holman’s Git and GitHub Secrets talk at Aloha Ruby Conference 2012 (slides) and his More Git and GitHub Secrets talk at WDCNZ 2013 (slides).

Shortlink: http://git.io/sheet

Read this in other languages: English, 한국어, 日本語, 简体中文, 正體中文.

GitHub Cheat Sheet is sponsored by Snapshot: create interactive professional-quality product photos using AI

GitHub
Git

GitHub

Ignore Whitespace

Adding ?w=1 to any diff URL will remove any changes only in whitespace, enabling you to see only the code that has changed.

Diff without whitespace

Read more about GitHub secrets.

Adjust Tab Space

Adding ?ts=4 to a diff or file URL will display tab characters as 4 spaces wide instead of the default 8. The number after ts can be adjusted to suit your preference. This does not work on Gists, or raw file views, but a Chrome extension can automate this.

Here is a Go source file before adding ?ts=4:

Before, tab space example

…and this is after adding ?ts=4:

After, tab space example

Commit History by Author

To view all commits on a repo by author add ?author={user} to the URL.

https://github.com/rails/rails/commits/master?author=dhh

DHH commit history

Cloning a Repository

When cloning a repository the .git can be left off the end.

$ git clone https://github.com/tiimgreen/github-cheat-sheet

Branch

Compare all Branches to Another Branch

If you go to the repo’s Branches GitHub Repo Stars GitHub last commit page, next to the Commits button:

https://github.com/{user}/{repo}/branches

… you would see a list of all branches which are not merged into the main branch.

From here you can access the compare page or delete a branch with a click of a button.

Compare branches not merged into master in rails/rails repo - https://github.com/rails/rails/branches

Comparing Branches

To use GitHub to compare branches, change the URL to look like this:

https://github.com/{user}/{repo}/compare/{range}

where {range} = master...4-1-stable

For example:

https://github.com/rails/rails/compare/master...4-1-stable

Rails branch compare example

{range} can be changed to things like:

https://github.com/rails/rails/compare/master@{1.day.ago}...master
https://github.com/rails/rails/compare/master@{2014-10-04}...master

Here, dates are in the format YYYY-MM-DD

Another compare example

Branches can also be compared in diff and patch views:

https://github.com/rails/rails/compare/master...4-1-stable.diff
https://github.com/rails/rails/compare/master...4-1-stable.patch

Compare Branches across Forked Repositories

To use GitHub to compare branches across forked repositories, change the URL to look like this:

https://github.com/{user}/{repo}/compare/{foreign-user}:{branch}...{own-branch}

For example:

https://github.com/rails/rails/compare/byroot:master...master

Forked branch compare

Gists

Gists are an easy way to work with small bits of code without creating a fully fledged repository.

Gist

Add .pibb to the end of any Gist URL (like this) in order to get the HTML-only version suitable for embedding in any other site.

Gists can be treated as a repository so they can be cloned like any other:

$ git clone https://gist.github.com/tiimgreen/10545817

Gists

This means you also can modify and push updates to Gists:

$ git commit
$ git push
Username for 'https://gist.github.com':
Password for 'https://tiimgreen@gist.github.com':

However, Gists do not support directories. All files need to be added to the repository root. Read more about creating Gists.

Git.io

Git.io is a simple URL shortener for GitHub.

Git.io

You can also use it via pure HTTP using Curl:

$ curl -i http://git.io -F "url=https://github.com/..."
HTTP/1.1 201 Created
Location: http://git.io/abc123

$ curl -i http://git.io/abc123
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Location: https://github.com/...

Read more about Git.io.

Keyboard Shortcuts

When on a repository page, keyboard shortcuts allow you to navigate easily.

Pressing t will bring up a file explorer.
Pressing w will bring up the branch selector.
Pressing s will focus the search field for the current repository. Pressing ↓ to select the “All GitHub” option changes the field to search all of GitHub.
Pressing l will edit labels on existing Issues.
Pressing y when looking at a file (e.g., https://github.com/tiimgreen/github-cheat-sheet/blob/master/README.md) will change your URL to one which, in effect, freezes the page you are looking at. If this code changes, you will still be able to see what you saw at that current time.

To see all of the shortcuts for the current page press ?:

Keyboard shortcuts

Line Highlighting in Repositories

Either adding, e.g., #L52 to the end of a code file URL or simply clicking the line number will highlight that line number.

It also works with ranges, e.g., #L53-L60, to select ranges, hold shift and click two lines:

https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/activemodel/lib/active_model.rb#L53-L60

Line Highlighting

Closing Issues via Commit Messages

If a particular commit fixes an issue, any of the keywords fix/fixes/fixed, close/closes/closed or resolve/resolves/resolved, followed by the issue number, will close the issue once it is committed to the repository’s default branch.

$ git commit -m "Fix screwup, fixes #12"

This closes the issue and references the closing commit.

Closing Repo

Cross-Link Issues

If you want to link to another issue in the same repository, simply type hash # then the issue number, and it will be auto-linked.

To link to an issue in another repository, {user}/{repo}#ISSUE_NUMBER, e.g., tiimgreen/toc#12.

Cross-Link Issues

Locking Conversations

Pull Requests and Issues can now be locked by owners or collaborators of the repo.

Lock conversation

This means that users who are not collaborators on the project will no longer be able to comment.

Comments locked

CI Status on Pull Requests

If set up correctly, every time you receive a Pull Request, Travis CI will build that Pull Request just like it would every time you make a new commit. Read more about how to get started with Travis CI.

Filters

Both issues and pull requests allow filtering in the user interface.

For the Rails repo: https://github.com/rails/rails/issues, the following filter is built by selecting the label “activerecord”:

is:issue label:activerecord

But, you can also find all issues that are NOT labeled activerecord:

is:issue -label:activerecord

Additionally, this also works for pull requests:

is:pr -label:activerecord

Github has tabs for displaying open or closed issues and pull requests but you can also see merged pull requests. Just put the following in the filter:

is:merged

Read more about searching issues.

Finally, github now allows you to filter by the Status API’s status.

Pull requests with only successful statuses:

status:success

Syntax Highlighting in Markdown Files

For example, to syntax highlight Ruby code in your Markdown files write:

```ruby
require 'tabbit'
table = Tabbit.new('Name', 'Email')
table.add_row('Tim Green', 'tiimgreen@gmail.com')
puts table.to_s
```

This will produce:

require 'tabbit'
table = Tabbit.new('Name', 'Email')
table.add_row('Tim Green', 'tiimgreen@gmail.com')
puts table.to_s

GitHub uses Linguist GitHub Repo Stars GitHub last commit to perform language detection and syntax highlighting. You can find out which keywords are valid by perusing the languages YAML file .

Emojis

Emojis can be added to Pull Requests, Issues, commit messages, repository descriptions, etc. using :name_of_emoji:.

The full list of supported Emojis on GitHub can be found at emoji-cheat-sheet.com or scotch-io/All-Github-Emoji-Icons . A handy emoji search engine can be found at emoji.muan.co.

The top 5 used Emojis on GitHub are:

:shipit:
:sparkles:
:-1:
:+1:
:clap:

Images/GIFs

Images and GIFs can be added to comments, READMEs etc.:

![Alt Text](http://www.sheawong.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/keephatin.gif)

Raw images from the repo can be used by calling them directly.:

![Alt Text](https://github.com/{user}/{repo}/raw/master/path/to/image.gif)

Peter don't care

All images are cached on GitHub, so if your host goes down, the image will remain available.

Embedding Images in GitHub Wiki

There are multiple ways of embedding images in Wiki pages. There’s the standard Markdown syntax (shown above). But there’s also a syntax that allows things like specifying the height or width of the image:

[[ http://www.sheawong.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/keephatin.gif | height = 100px ]]

Which produces:

Just a screenshot

Quick Quoting

When on a comment thread and you want to quote something someone previously said, highlight the text and press r, this will copy it into your text box in the block-quote format.

Quick Quote

Read more about quick quoting.

Pasting Clipboard Image to Comments

(Works on Chrome browsers only)

After taking a screenshot and adding it to the clipboard (mac: cmd-ctrl-shift-4), you can simply paste (cmd-v / ctrl-v) the image into the comment section and it will be auto-uploaded to github.

Pasting Clipboard Image to Comments

Read more about issue attachments.

Quick Licensing

When creating a repository, GitHub gives you the option of adding in a pre-made license:

License

You can also add them to existing repositories by creating a new file through the web interface. When the name LICENSE is typed in you will get an option to use a template:

License

Also works for .gitignore.

Task Lists

In Issues and Pull requests check boxes can be added with the following syntax (notice the space):

- [ ] Be awesome
- [ ] Prepare dinner
  - [ ] Research recipe
  - [ ] Buy ingredients
  - [ ] Cook recipe
- [ ] Sleep

Task List

When they are clicked, they will be updated in the pure Markdown:

- [x] Be awesome
- [ ] Prepare dinner
  - [x] Research recipe
  - [x] Buy ingredients
  - [ ] Cook recipe
- [ ] Sleep

Read more about task lists.

Task Lists in Markdown Documents

In full Markdown documents read-only checklists can now be added using the following syntax:

- [ ] Mercury
- [x] Venus
- [x] Earth
  - [x] Moon
- [x] Mars
  - [ ] Deimos
  - [ ] Phobos

Relative Links

Relative links are recommended in your Markdown files when linking to internal content.

[Link to a header](#awesome-section)
[Link to a file](docs/readme)

Absolute links have to be updated whenever the URL changes (e.g., repository renamed, username changed, project forked). Using relative links makes your documentation easily stand on its own.

Read more about relative links.

Metadata and Plugin Support for GitHub Pages

Within Jekyll pages and posts, repository information is available within the site.github namespace, and can be displayed, for example, using {{ site.github.project_title }}.

The Jemoji and jekyll-mentions plugins enable emoji and @mentions GitHub Repo Stars GitHub last commit in your Jekyll posts and pages to work just like you’d expect when interacting with a repository on GitHub.com.

Viewing YAML Metadata in your Documents

Many blogging websites, like Jekyll with GitHub Pages, depend on some YAML-formatted metadata at the beginning of your post. GitHub will render this metadata as a horizontal table, for easier reading

YAML metadata

Rendering Tabular Data

GitHub supports rendering tabular data in the form of .csv (comma-separated) and .tsv (tab-separated) files.

Tabular data

Rendering PDF

GitHub supports rendering PDF:

PDF

Read more about rendering PDF.

Revert a Pull Request

After a pull request is merged, you may find it does not help anything or it was a bad decision to merge the pull request.

You can revert it by clicking the Revert button on the right side of a commit in the pull request page to create a pull request with reverted changes to this specific pull request.

Revert button

Diffs

Rendered Prose Diffs

Commits and pull requests, including rendered documents supported by GitHub (e.g., Markdown), feature source and rendered views.

Source / Rendered view

Click the “rendered” button to see the changes as they’ll appear in the rendered document. Rendered prose view is handy when you’re adding, removing, and editing text:

Rendered Prose Diffs

Read more about rendered prose diffs.

Diffable Maps

Any time you view a commit or pull request on GitHub that includes geodata, GitHub will render a visual representation of what was changed.

Read more about diffable maps.

Expanding Context in Diffs

Using the unfold button in the gutter of a diff, you can reveal additional lines of context with a click. You can keep clicking unfold until you’ve revealed the whole file, and the feature is available anywhere GitHub renders diffs.

Expanding Context in Diffs

Diff or Patch of Pull Request

You can get the diff of a Pull Request by adding a .diff or .patch extension to the end of the URL. For example:

https://github.com/tiimgreen/github-cheat-sheet/pull/15
https://github.com/tiimgreen/github-cheat-sheet/pull/15.diff
https://github.com/tiimgreen/github-cheat-sheet/pull/15.patch

The .diff extension would give you this in plain text:

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 88fcf69..8614873 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ All the hidden and not hidden features of Git and GitHub. This cheat sheet was i
 - [Merged Branches](#merged-branches)
 - [Quick Licensing](#quick-licensing)
 - [TODO Lists](#todo-lists)
+- [Relative Links](#relative-links)
 - [.gitconfig Recommendations](#gitconfig-recommendations)
     - [Aliases](#aliases)
     - [Auto-correct](#auto-correct)
@@ -381,6 +382,19 @@ When they are clicked, they will be updated in the pure Markdown:
 - [ ] Sleep

(...)

Rendering and diffing images

GitHub can display several common image formats, including PNG, JPG, GIF, and PSD. In addition, there are several ways to compare differences between versions of those image formats.

Hub

Hub GitHub Repo Stars GitHub last commit is a command line Git wrapper that gives you extra features and commands that make working with GitHub easier.

This allows you to do things like:

$ hub clone tiimgreen/toc

Check out some more cool commands Hub has to offer.

Contribution Guidelines

GitHub supports adding 3 different files which help users contribute to your project. These files can either be placed in the root of your repository or a .github directory under the root.

CONTRIBUTING File

Adding a CONTRIBUTING or CONTRIBUTING.md file to either the root of your repository or a .github directory will add a link to your file when a contributor creates an Issue or opens a Pull Request.

Contributing Guidelines

ISSUE_TEMPLATE file

You can define a template for all new issues opened in your project. The content of this file will pre-populate the new issue box when users create new issues. Add an ISSUE_TEMPLATE or ISSUE_TEMPLATE.md file to either the root of your repository or a .github directory.

Read more about issue templates.

Issue template file generator

GitHub Issue template

PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE file

You can define a template for all new pull requests opened in your project. The content of this file will pre-populate the text area when users create pull requests. Add a PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE or PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md file to either the root of your repository or a .github directory.

Pull request template file generator

Octicons

GitHubs icons (Octicons) have now been open sourced.

Octicons

Read more about GitHub’s Octicons

GitHub Student Developer Pack

If you are a student you will be eligible for the GitHub Student Developer Pack. This gives you free credit, free trials and early access to software that will help you when developing.

GitHub Student Developer Pack

GitHub Resources

GitHub Talks

SSH keys

You can get a list of public ssh keys in plain text format by visiting:

https://github.com/{user}.keys

e.g. https://github.com/tiimgreen.keys

Profile Image

You can get a user’s profile image by visiting:

https://github.com/{user}.png

e.g. https://github.com/tiimgreen.png

Repository Templates

You can enable templating on your repository which allows anyone to copy the directory structure and files, allowing them to instantly use the files (e.g. for a tutorial or if writing boilerplate code). This can be enabled in the settings of your repository.

Convert

Changing to a template repository will give a new URL endpoint which can be shared and instantly allows users to use your repository as a template. Alternatively, they can go to your repository and click the ‘Use as template’ button.

Template

Git

Remove All Deleted Files from the Working Tree

When you delete a lot of files using /bin/rm you can use the following command to remove them from the working tree and from the index, eliminating the need to remove each one individually:

$ git rm $(git ls-files -d)

For example:

$ git status
On branch master
Changes not staged for commit:
	deleted:    a
	deleted:    c

$ git rm $(git ls-files -d)
rm 'a'
rm 'c'

$ git status
On branch master
Changes to be committed:
	deleted:    a
	deleted:    c

Previous Branch

To move to the previous branch in Git:

$ git checkout -
# Switched to branch 'master'

$ git checkout -
# Switched to branch 'next'

$ git checkout -
# Switched to branch 'master'

Read more about Git branching.

Stripspace

Git Stripspace:

Strips trailing whitespace
Collapses newlines
Adds newline to end of file

A file must be passed when calling the command, e.g.:

$ git stripspace < README.md

Checking out Pull Requests

Pull Requests are special branches on the GitHub repository which can be retrieved locally in several ways:

Retrieve a specific Pull Request and store it temporarily in FETCH_HEAD for quickly diff-ing or merge-ing:

$ git fetch origin refs/pull/[PR-Number]/head

Acquire all Pull Request branches as local remote branches by refspec:

$ git fetch origin '+refs/pull/*/head:refs/remotes/origin/pr/*'

Or setup the remote to fetch Pull Requests automatically by adding these corresponding lines in your repository’s .git/config:

[remote "origin"]
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
    url = git@github.com:tiimgreen/github-cheat-sheet.git

[remote "origin"]
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
    url = git@github.com:tiimgreen/github-cheat-sheet.git
    fetch = +refs/pull/*/head:refs/remotes/origin/pr/*

For Fork-based Pull Request contributions, it’s useful to checkout a remote branch representing the Pull Request and create a local branch from it:

$ git checkout pr/42 pr-42

Or should you work on more repositories, you can globally configure fetching pull requests in the global git config instead.

git config --global --add remote.origin.fetch "+refs/pull/*/head:refs/remotes/origin/pr/*"

This way, you can use the following short commands in all your repositories:

git fetch origin

git checkout pr/42

Empty Commits

Commits can be pushed with no code changes by adding --allow-empty:

$ git commit -m "Big-ass commit" --allow-empty

Some use-cases for this (that make sense), include:

Annotating the start of a new bulk of work or a new feature.
Documenting when you make changes to the project that aren’t code related.
Communicating with people using your repository.
The first commit of a repository: git commit -m "Initial commit" --allow-empty.

Styled Git Status

Running:

$ git status

produces:

git status

By adding -sb:

$ git status -sb

this is produced:

git status -sb

Styled Git Log

Running:

$ git log --all --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(auto)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit --date=relative

produces:

git log --all --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(auto)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit --date=relative

Credit to Palesz

This can be aliased using the instructions found here .

Git Query

A Git query allows you to search all your previous commit messages and find the most recent one matching the query.

$ git show :/query

where query (case-sensitive) is the term you want to search, this then finds the last one and gives details on the lines that were changed.

$ git show :/typo

git show :/query

Press q to quit.

Git Grep

Git Grep will return a list of lines matching a pattern.

Running:

$ git grep aliases

will show all the files containing the string aliases.

git grep aliases

Press q to quit.

You can also use multiple flags for more advanced search. For example:

-e The next parameter is the pattern (e.g., regex)
--and, --or and --not Combine multiple patterns.

Use it like this:

 $ git grep -e pattern --and -e anotherpattern

Merged Branches

Running:

$ git branch --merged

will give you a list of all branches that have been merged into your current branch.

Conversely:

$ git branch --no-merged

will give you a list of branches that have not been merged into your current branch.

Fixup and Autosquash

If there is something wrong with a previous commit (can be one or more from HEAD), for example abcde, run the following command after you’ve amended the problem:

$ git commit --fixup=abcde
$ git rebase abcde^ --autosquash -i

Web Server for Browsing Local Repositories

Use the Git instaweb command to instantly browse your working repository in gitweb. This command is a simple script to set up gitweb and a web server for browsing the local repository.

$ git instaweb

opens:

Git instaweb

Git Configurations

Your .gitconfig file contains all your Git configurations.

Aliases

Aliases are helpers that let you define your own git calls. For example you could set git a to run git add --all.

To add an alias, either navigate to ~/.gitconfig and fill it out in the following format:

[alias]
  co = checkout
  cm = commit
  p = push
  # Show verbose output about tags, branches or remotes
  tags = tag -l
  branches = branch -a
  remotes = remote -v

…or type in the command-line:

$ git config --global alias.new_alias git_function

For example:

$ git config --global alias.cm commit

For an alias with multiple functions use quotes:

$ git config --global alias.ac 'add -A . && commit'

Some useful aliases include:

Alias	Command	What to Type
`git cm`	`git commit`	`git config --global alias.cm commit`
`git co`	`git checkout`	`git config --global alias.co checkout`
`git ac`	`git add . -A` `git commit`	`git config --global alias.ac '!git add -A && git commit'`
`git st`	`git status -sb`	`git config --global alias.st 'status -sb'`
`git tags`	`git tag -l`	`git config --global alias.tags 'tag -l'`
`git branches`	`git branch -a`	`git config --global alias.branches 'branch -a'`
`git cleanup`	`git branch --merged \\| grep -v '*' \\| xargs git branch -d`	`git config --global alias.cleanup "!git branch --merged \\| grep -v '*' \\| xargs git branch -d"`
`git remotes`	`git remote -v`	`git config --global alias.remotes 'remote -v'`
`git lg`	`git log --color --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit --`	`git config --global alias.lg "log --color --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit --"`

Some Aliases are taken from @mathiasbynens dotfiles: https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/master/.gitconfig

Auto-Correct

Git gives suggestions for misspelled commands and if auto-correct is enabled the command can be fixed and executed automatically. Auto-correct is enabled by specifying an integer which is the delay in tenths of a second before git will run the corrected command. Zero is the default value where no correcting will take place, and a negative value will run the corrected command with no delay.

For example, if you type git comit you will get this:

$ git comit -m "Message"
# git: 'comit' is not a git command. See 'git --help'.

# Did you mean this?
#   commit

Auto-correct can be enabled like this (with a 1.5 second delay):

$ git config --global help.autocorrect 15

So now the command git comit will be auto-corrected to git commit like this:

$ git comit -m "Message"
# WARNING: You called a Git command named 'comit', which does not exist.
# Continuing under the assumption that you meant 'commit'
# in 1.5 seconds automatically...

The delay before git will rerun the command is so the user has time to abort.

Color

To add more color to your Git output:

$ git config --global color.ui 1

Git Resources

Git Books

Git Videos

Git Articles

Awesome Lists with GitHub stars

GitHub Cheat Sheet

Table of Contents

GitHub

Ignore Whitespace

Adjust Tab Space

Commit History by Author

Cloning a Repository

Branch

Compare all Branches to Another Branch

Comparing Branches

Compare Branches across Forked Repositories

Gists

Git.io

Keyboard Shortcuts

Line Highlighting in Repositories

Closing Issues via Commit Messages

Cross-Link Issues

Locking Conversations

CI Status on Pull Requests

Filters

Syntax Highlighting in Markdown Files

Emojis

Images/GIFs

Embedding Images in GitHub Wiki

Quick Quoting

Pasting Clipboard Image to Comments

Quick Licensing

Task Lists

Task Lists in Markdown Documents

Relative Links

Metadata and Plugin Support for GitHub Pages

Viewing YAML Metadata in your Documents

Rendering Tabular Data

Rendering PDF

Revert a Pull Request

Diffs

Rendered Prose Diffs

Diffable Maps

Expanding Context in Diffs

Diff or Patch of Pull Request

Rendering and diffing images

Hub

Contribution Guidelines

CONTRIBUTING File

ISSUE_TEMPLATE file

PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE file

Octicons

GitHub Student Developer Pack

GitHub Resources

GitHub Talks

SSH keys

Profile Image

Repository Templates

Git

Remove All Deleted Files from the Working Tree

Previous Branch

Stripspace

Checking out Pull Requests

Empty Commits

Styled Git Status

Styled Git Log

Git Query

Git Grep

Merged Branches

Fixup and Autosquash

Web Server for Browsing Local Repositories

Git Configurations

Aliases

Auto-Correct

Color

Git Resources

Git Books

Git Videos

Git Articles