World 11: Rescue Center

I'm in detached HEAD

You will learn: how to leave a detached HEAD without losing commits.

The problem

~/diary $ git statusHEAD detached from a8feb63nothing to commit, working tree clean

Git says HEAD is detached. Sounds scary! It only means HEAD sits on a commit, not on a branch. This happens to everyone.

Watch

You made a commit while detached. Leave now, and it gets left behind. No branch holds it.

Try it

You want to keep that commit. What do you do first?

Try it

Keep your commit. Make a branch called new-title, right here.

Hint

Type git switch -c new-title, then press Enter.

Predict

New story: you only looked around. No new commits. How do you get home?

You did it!

You can now leave a detached HEAD without losing commits.

Go deeper (optional)

Already left, and the commit is gone? The reflog remembers. Right after leaving, git branch new-title HEAD@{1} brings it back. Git also prints the commit’s hash when you leave. git branch new-title plus that hash works too.