Git Beyond Push & Pull - Jørgen Kvalsvik - NDC Oslo 2024

Git’s staging area (index/cache) provides fine-grained control over changes - use git add -p for interactive staging of specific hunks within files

Write focused, single-purpose commits that do one logical change. This makes them easier to review, cherry-pick, and understand later

Follow the 50/72 rule for commit messages:

• 50 character limit for the subject line
• 72 character limit for the message body
• Write subjects in imperative mood

Commit messages should explain the WHY behind changes, not just WHAT changed. The code already shows what changed, but the motivation and reasoning needs to be documented

git bisect is a powerful debugging tool that works best when:

• Each commit builds and passes tests
• Commits are focused and well-documented
• Changes can be tested with a clear yes/no outcome

git rebase can be used to:

• Clean up commit history before pushing
• Reorganize commits into logical groups
• Fix up earlier commits with --fixup and --autosquash

Public history should be treated as immutable, but local history can and should be rewritten to create clean, logical commits

Use git cherry-pick to selectively apply changes from one branch to another

Higher resolution tools like patch mode (-p) provide more control than file-level operations

Regular committing with good hygiene practices makes Git’s advanced features more useful and powerful later