Engineering Craft › Version Control (Git)

Amend

Changing the most recent commit's content or message.

Also known as: git commit --amend, amend commit, amend last commit

git commit --amend replaces your most recent commit with a corrected one. Use it for a typo in the message or a file you forgot to include.

git commit --amend -m "Fix login redirect"   # change the message

git add forgotten-file.py
git commit --amend --no-edit                  # add the file, keep the message

Amending doesn’t edit the commit; it creates a new commit with a new hash and moves the branch to it. The old commit is still there for a while (see reflog), but nothing points at it.

The rule: only amend what you haven’t shared

Once a commit is pushed and others may have based work on it, amending it rewrites history they already have. You can amend a commit that’s only on your own branch, but then you need a force push to update the remote:

git push --force-with-lease

--force-with-lease refuses to overwrite commits you haven’t seen, which is much safer than plain --force. See force push. On a shared branch like main, don’t amend at all. Make a new commit that fixes the problem instead.

When to use it

• Fixing the message of the last commit.
• Adding a forgotten file or a tiny correction.
• Tidying before you open a pull request.

For changing older commits, see interactive rebase. If you amended something by mistake, the reflog can get the old commit back.