Engineering Craft › Version Control (Git)

Stash

Temporarily shelving uncommitted changes.

Also known as: git stash, stash changes, shelve changes

git stash temporarily shelves your uncommitted changes, giving you a clean working directory, so you can switch branches or pull without committing half-finished work.

git stash                    # save tracked changes and clean the directory
git stash push -m "login wip"   # same, with a label
git stash -u                 # also stash new (untracked) files
git stash list               # see the stack of stashes
git stash pop                # re-apply the latest and remove it from the list
git stash apply stash@{1}    # re-apply a specific one and keep it
git stash drop stash@{0}     # delete one

A typical use

You’re in the middle of a feature when an urgent bug arrives:

git stash                    # shelve the half-done work
git switch main
git switch -c hotfix/crash
# fix, commit, push
git switch feature/login
git stash pop                # carry on where you left off

What it does and doesn’t save

• Saves changes to tracked files, both staged and unstaged.
• Untracked files are left alone unless you use -u.
• Ignored files are skipped unless you use -a.

Cautions

• Stashes are easy to forget. They pile up, and are tied to no branch. Check git stash list, and prefer a real commit or a WIP branch for anything you’ll keep for more than a short time.
• Popping can conflict if the code changed meanwhile. Resolve it like a merge conflict. The stash stays in the list until the pop succeeds.
• Pop on the right branch. It applies to wherever you are.
• A dropped stash can be recovered with some effort (git fsck), but don’t count on it.

A commit on a temporary branch is often a safer shelf than a stash.