Renaming Your Latest Pushed Commit

In the world of Git, mistakes happen. Maybe you've pushed a commit with a typo in the message, or you've realized that your commit message doesn't accurately describe the changes. Fear not! Git provides a way to rectify this situation, even after you've pushed your commit.

The Power of --amend

To rename your latest pushed commit, you'll use a combination of git commit --amend and git push --force. Here's the process:

git commit --amend -m "Your new, corrected commit message"
git push --force origin main

Let's break this down:

1. git commit --amend allows you to modify the most recent commit.
2. The -m flag followed by your message in quotes lets you specify the new commit message.
3. git push --force overwrites the remote history with your local history.

A Real-World Example

Let's walk through a real scenario where this technique proved invaluable.

The Typo

I had just pushed a commit with the following message:

REMAKE V4 — WEEK 4: Customers Recor In Production

Did you spot the error? We're missing the 'd' in "Record". Here's visual proof of our typo:

The Fix

To correct this, I used the technique we just learned:

git commit --amend -m "REMAKE V4 — WEEK 4: Customers Record In Production"

This command gave me the following output:

[main 89bf479] REMAKE V4 — WEEK 4: Customers Record In Production
 Date: Fri Aug 25 09:53:12 2023 +0000
 3 files changed, 346 insertions(+), 21 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 aws/policies/LambdaVPCAccessPolicy.json
 rename journal/{week4-todo.md => week4-progress.md} (100%)

The Push

Now comes the tricky part. When you try to push this amended commit, you might encounter an error:

git push --force origin main

If your branch is protected (a good practice for important branches), you'll see something like this:

remote: error: GH006: Protected branch update failed for refs/heads/main.
remote: error: Cannot force-push to this branch

Temporarily Unprotecting Your Branch

To push your amended commit, you'll need to temporarily unprotect your branch. This is a delicate operation and should be done with caution. Here's what you need to do:

1. Go to your repository settings on GitHub.
2. Navigate to "Branches" under "Code and automation".
3. Find your protected branch (in this case, 'main').
4. Click on "Edit" next to the branch protection rule.
5. Uncheck the "Require pull request reviews before merging" option.
6. Scroll down and click "Save changes".

Now you can force push your changes:

git push --force origin main

If successful, you'll see output similar to this:

Enumerating objects: 12, done.
Counting objects: 100% (12/12), done.
Delta compression using up to 16 threads
Compressing objects: 100% (7/7), done.
Writing objects: 100% (7/7), 5.33 KiB | 2.67 MiB/s, done.
Total 7 (delta 5), reused 1 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
remote: Resolving deltas: 100% (5/5), completed with 5 local objects.
To https://github.com/yaya2devops/aws-cloud-project-bootcamp.git
 + 9c2136e...89bf479 main -> main (forced update)

The Result

After this process, your commit message will be corrected:

• Here the commit that no longer is (opens in a new tab).
• Here the commit that actually is (opens in a new tab).

Re-protecting Your Branch

Once you've successfully pushed your amended commit, it's crucial to re-enable branch protection:

1. Return to your repository settings on GitHub.
2. Go back to "Branches" under "Code and automation".
3. Find your 'main' branch.
4. Click on "Edit" next to the branch protection rule.
5. Re-check the "Require pull request reviews before merging" option.
6. Scroll down and click "Save changes".

Best Practices and Warnings

1. Use with Caution: Force pushing rewrites history. Only do this on commits that haven't been pulled by others.
2. Communicate: If you're working in a team, make sure everyone knows you're about to rewrite history.
3. Branch Protection: Always re-enable branch protection after force pushing.
4. Consider Alternatives: For older commits, consider making a new commit that fixes the issue instead of rewriting history.

Remember, with great power comes great responsibility. Use these techniques wisely!