Recovering from Git Disasters — The 'I Messed Everything Up' Playbook
Using reflog as your safety net, undoing bad merges, resetting commits, and recovering from common Git catastrophes
It's 11 PM. Your AI agent just ran a command you didn't fully understand. The branch looks wrong. Files are missing. The build is broken. git log shows commits you don't recognize. You're one step away from deleting the whole repo and cloning fresh.
Stop. Breathe. Git is almost impossible to permanently break.
The data is there. Your commits are there. Your files are there. Git has a recovery mechanism so robust that you have to actively try to lose data. This lesson is your emergency playbook — the commands and techniques that rescue you when everything seems lost.
Rule Number One: Don't Panic, Don't Delete
Before you do anything drastic, know this: Git keeps almost everything. Even commits you think you deleted are still in Git's database for at least 30 days for unreachabl
This lesson is part of the Guild Member curriculum. Plans start at $29/mo.