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• Suggested team workflow
• Restore from previous commit
• Delete files from Git repository

Suggested team workflow

centralized workflow + feature branching should be used for a small dev team

• Team members should be the contributors with push permission to the centralized repo
• Keep the master branch as a stable release branch
• Each team member will create a new feature branch (e.g. feature-XXX)
• Sync with the master branch and resolve conflicts
• Commit your changes and publish to the feature branch
• Send a pull request to the master branch
• Code review and merge OR reject the changes

Further references about different workflows:

• git-scm: Distributed Workflows
• atlassian: Comparing workflows

Step 1.1 - Clone the repository

Clone the whole repository for the first time

git clone [Repo URL]

Step 1.2 - Checkout a remote branch

Checkout a remote branch and create a local branch. Local and remote branch can have different name.

git checkout -b [branch name] origin/[branch name]

Step 2 - Create a feature branch

Create a new branch

git checkout -b [branch-name]

Query the current branches

git branch 

Switch to another branch

git checkout [branch-name]

Step 3 - Feature development and commit (locally)

git add .                      # stage files (new, modified, deleted, equivalent to ``git add -A``)
git commit -m "[Comment]"      # write a reasonable commit log    

Step 4 - Sync with the master branch and resolve conflicts

git checkout master            # switch to the local master 
git pull                       # pull from remote master branch
git checkout [branch name]     # switch to the feature branch
git merge master               # merge diff from master

Please resolve conflicts and errors before pushing to the remote repo

Step 5 - Push to the remote feature branch

If it is the first time to push from local to remote, additional parameters are needed:

git checkout [branch name]                     # switch to the feature branch
git push --set-upstream origin [branch name]   # create a new feature branch in the upstream and push

Otherwise:

git checkout [branch name]                     # switch to the feature branch
git push                                       # push from local to remote feature branch

Step 6 - Pull request and Merge

1. Switch to the GitHub web interface
2. Select the branch name you would like to merge to master
3. Click New pull request button
4. Type in the pull request title and comments
5. Review commit log messages and file changes
6. Code review. If needed, the feature branch maintainer should make changes and commit to the feature branch. The pull request will be automatically updated.
7. The master branch maintainer approves/rejects the merge, or keep the discussing the issues via the pull request

Step 7 - [Optional] Delete local and remote branch

Once the branch is merged, we may delete the feature branch:

Delete a local branch:

git branch -d [branch name]

Delete a remote branch

git push origin --delete [branch name]

Alternatively, you can use a web interface to delete a remote branch

Restore from previous commit

Step 1 - Query the commit log and unique commit id

git log

The commit ids can also be found via the web interface at GitHub

Step 2.1 - Temporary detach and view the commit

git checkout [commit id]      # temporary detach and view
git checkout [branch name]    # switch to a branch, the temporary view is removed

Step 2.2 - Create a new branch based on a previous commit

git checkout -b [new branch name] [commit id]   # create a new branch from an old commit

Other advanced operations: StackOverflow: How to revert Git repository to a previous commit?

Delete files from Git repository

Step 1 - Remove and commit

If you need to remove a file from both git repo and local filesystem:

git rm [filename]

If you only want to remove a file from git repo (and keep the local copy):

git rm --cached [filename]

Step 2 - Push to the remote repo

git push

Other useful Git usage

Rename a local branch

git branch -m <oldname> <newname>